
Copyright N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



J7> 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 



BOOKS BY HUGO MUNSTERBERG 

Psychology and Life 

pp. 286, Boston. 1899 

Grundziige der Psychologie 

pp. 565, Leipzig, 1900 

American Traits 

pp. 235, Boston, 1902 

Die Amerikaner 

pp. 502 and 349, Berlin, 1904 (Rev. 1912) 

Principles of Art Education 

pp. 118, New York, 1905 

The Eternal Life 

pp. 72, Boston, 1905 

Science and Idealism 

pp. 71, Boston, 1906 
Philosophie der Werte 

pp. 486, Leipzig, 1907 

On the Witness Stand 

pp. 269, New York, 1908 

Aus Deutsch-Amerika 

pp. 245, Berlin, 1909 

The Eternal Values 

pp. 436, Boston, 1909 

Psychotherapy 

pp. 401, New York, 1909 

Psychology and the Teacher 

pp. 330, New York, 1910 

American Problems 

pp. 220, New York, 1910 

Psychologie und Wirtschaftsleben 

pp. 192, Leipzig, 1912 

Vocation and Learning 

pp. 289, St. Louis, 1912 

Psychology and Industrial Efficiency 

pp. 321, Boston, 1913 

American Patriotism 

pp. 262, New York, 1913 

Grundziige der Psychotechnik 

pp. 767, Leipzig, 1914 

Psychology and Social Sanity 

pp. 320, New York, 1914 

Psychology, General and Applied 

pp. 487, New York. 1914 

The War and America 

New York, 1914 



THE WAR 
AND AMERICA 



BY 

HUGO MUNSTERBERG 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

1914 



.tt8 



Copyright, 1914, bt 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



SEP 22 1914 



Printed in the United States of America 



C!,A;J79575 

Tu.i 



TO ALL 
LOVERS OF FAIR PLAY 



PREFACE 

This book discusses the essential factors and 
issues in the European war and their meaning 
and import for America. The hour for an im- 
personal account of the war has certainly not yet 
come, and may not come for a long while. What 
our time can contribute is the reflection of the 
great war in the minds of individuals. A story 
of memories and impressions, of fears and hopes, 
has to-day more inner truth than any history of 
the struggle apparently written with an historian 's 
coolness. This diary, therefore, views tlie events 
as they unfold themselves from week to week, 
from the angle of personal experiences. 

Life has brought me into close contact with 
much which is essential in this war. Hence my 
studies may help toward a better understanding 
of facts and feelings which are easily misunder- 
stood in America. I publish the book, of which 
the emphasis lies in the last paper, before the war 
is ended. "Whatever more the struggle may bring 
refers to outer events, to the harvest of the guns, 
to victory or defeat. It cannot change the issues 
with which these pages have to do. They do not 
speak of soldiers and strategy and the chances of 
the battlefield; they speak of right and wrong; 
they speak of eternal values. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

I. The Aggressors 1 

II. The Anti-German Sentiment ... 15 

III. The German-Americans 47 

IV. The Threatened Provinces .... 57 
V. The English 68 

VI. Philosophers 79 

VII. The Russians 92 

VIII. The German Policy 108 

IX. The Kaiser 124 

X. The Silent Voices 138 

XL The Americans 155 

XII. The Morals of the War 175 

Note 209 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 



THE AGGEESSOES 

War is declared — the extra numbers of the 
papers shout it through the streets — War is 
declared. The war is declared. There have 
been wars as long as mankind remembers, 
but this is not a war like others. This is the 
war which will stand out from the world's 
history like a Titan among the pigmies. This 
is the war in which undreamed-of armies will 
storm against each other; the war in which 
the battles will be fought on land and sea, 
under the water and high in the air ; the war 
in which the ground of the whole globe will 
be shaken. 

How peaceful was our yesterday ! How it 
was filled with the work and the joy, the 
good-will and the stress, the pleasantness and 
the littleness of the passing lackadaisical 

1 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

hours ! And suddenly a lightning and a thun- 
der crash and a cry through the world; and 
we stand in a time of which men will speak 
through all the future ages. Passions will be 
ablaze, streams of blood will drench all 
Europe, temples will fall and sacred treas- 
ures will be destroyed, works of art and of 
science will be thrown in the dust, hundreds 
of thousands will die and hundreds of mil- 
lions will suffer — it is an end, and nowhere 
a beginning. 

Is it a terrible nightmare of our dreams? 
Were these peoples not bound together by 
innumerable ties of social and moral, eco- 
nomic and cultural intercourse! Were Ber- 
lin and Paris and Petersburg and Vienna 
and Rome and London not the sparkling cen- 
ters of one great European Fair, hospitable 
to every guest, glittering with international 
spirit? Their scholars and writers and paint- 
ers, their inventors and engineers and social 
reformers, worked for the world, and the 
world welcomed them and forgot all boun- 
dary lines. The national armies of Euro- 
pean civilization marched shoulder to shoul- 
der; was ever a war more unnatural, more 
superfluous, more horrible, than this sudden 

2 



THE AGGRESSORS 

clash among friends? Has not a frivolous, 
reckless militarism won a distressing and 
scandalous triumph over the powers of 
culture ? 

And yet was ever a war more natural, more 
unavoidable? It is central Europe's des- 
perate defense against the mighty neighbors 
of east and west who have prepared and pre- 
pared for the crushing blow to the Germanic 
nations. This war had to come sooner or 
later. Russia spent billions to be ready to 
push the steam roller of its gigantic popula- 
tion over the German frontier. France 
armed as no civilized nation ever armed be- 
fore; even the educated had to serve three 
years in the army against the one year's 
service in Germany. For decades the French 
did not allow Germany an hour to rest with- 
out armor. 

Germany's pacific and industrious popula- 
tion had only the one wish: to develop its 
agricultural and industrial, its cultural and 
moral resources. It had no desire to expand 
its frontiers over a new square foot of land 
in Europe. It aimed to unfold its commerce 
over the markets of the world and to build 
up a great national literature and art and 

3 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

science. It became prosperous and even lux- 
urious. But never did the neighbors allow to 
Germany a pause in its training of patriotic 
defenders. The neighbors begrudged this 
prosperity of the fatherland which had been 
weak and poor and through centuries satis- 
fied with songs and thoughts and dreams. 
They threatened and threatened by ever in- 
creasing armaments. Germany had to spend 
a vast part of its material and mental income 
in a hard preparation for defense. 

All geographical chances were against the 
fatherland, which was to be attacked from 
two sides. Only one advantage was at its dis- 
posal. Germany's small territory allows 
mobilization and concentration in a few days, 
while Eussia needs as many weeks to bring 
its tremendous hordes to the frontier. Hence 
Germany's only hope was, in case of Russian 
mobilization, not to wait until the Russians 
had completed their movements but to at- 
tack as soon as the Czar began to draw up 
his troops to its boundaries. To delay the 
German attack after such a Russian order to 
mobilize would mean to throw away the only 
chance for defense. Germany was on the 
lookout. Yet only a few weeks ago, no Ger- 

4 



THE AGGRESSORS 

man, high or low, foresaw that such a de- 
cisive move of Russia was so near. All Ger- 
many was on a vacation, in the mountains 
and at the sea. The Emperor was enjoying 
his yearly summer trip in Norway. Nobody 
thought of imminent danger until the events 
overtook the world. 

Servians had killed the heir of the Aus- 
trian throne and Austria discovered that 
Servia itself stood behind the dastardly deed. 
Austria insisted on a severe punishment of 
all concerned and sent an ultimatum to 
Servia. Belgrade was willing to yield com- 
pletely to its great neighbor, but at noontime 
of the day on which the ultimatum was to 
end, a cipher telegram from Petersburg ar- 
rived, and the message of the Russian gov- 
ernment to the Servian reversed the mood 
of the little kingdom. The bellicose Servian 
Crown Prince, standing in his automobile, 
drove jubilantly through the excited crowds 
on the streets, and a few hours later a re- 
fusal was sent to Vienna which could mean 
nothing but war. The Czar had instigated it 
and was consistent : the Russian empire was 
to back little Servia against its foes. He gave 
orders to mobilize the whole Russian army. 

5 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

The German Emperor hurried home and 
found that the Russian troops were being 
concentrated on the frontier. He implored 
the Czar to abstain from this threatening 
move, and he reminded him of his pledge 
to his dying grandfather to keep peace with 
Russia as long as possible; he urged him to 
consider how Germany had helped the Rus- 
sian cause in one conflict after another and 
had allowed Russia to evacuate its eastern 
frontiers in the war with Japan, pledging 
peace in the hours of Russia's weakness. 
But all was of no avail. On the other hand, 
Austria felt that it could not withdraw from 
its demands to Servia. If the Servian at- 
tacks which culminated in the assassination 
remained unpunished, the Pan-Slavic agita 
tion at its doors would soon grow to a poii.t 
at which the Slavic provinces of Austria it- 
self would be inflamed and the whole Aus- 
trian empire would break in pieces and be- 
come annihilated. This was evidently the 
hope of Russia, which would gain by it the 
control of the Balkans and of Constantinople. 

The German Emperor nevertheless prom- 
ised the Czar to urge his Austrian ally 
toward mediation, if, meanwhile, Russia 

6 



THE AGGRESSORS 

would only pause in mobilizing the troops. 
But the Czar was stubborn. His armies were 
marching on, and as soon as the eastern 
colossus began to move, at the signal of Rus- 
sia, France too mobilized at once. No Ger- 
man protest helped. Now Germany knew 
that the dreaded hour of the twofold attack 
against its homes had come. It answered 
with a quick declaration of war. This was 
the one act which was necessary for „ Ger- 
many's defense. Surely, although Germany 
made the declaration, this is a war against 
Germany, and it is a sin against the spirit 
of history to denounce Germany as the ag- 
gressor. 

It may be the declaration of war came 
too late. Perhaps it would have been better 
if Germany had really had something of the 
aggressive temper which hostile critics now 
seek in its deed. Then it would have fallen 
upon Russia when it was bleeding from the 
war with Japan. Then it would have turned 
against France when England was held by its 
Boer war. But Germany had for more than 
forty years the one desire to have peace in 
order to develop its inner energies. Aggres- 
sion was foreign to its policies and plans. 

7 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

It allowed all its chances for easy victory 
to pass. Will it suffer from this persistent 
peacef ulness t 

But I trust that the Germans will know 
how to protect the harvests of their fields. 
It is true no fanaticism sharpens their sword 
like those of the rivals; no craving for re- 
venge, no mad longing for new power. The 
Germans feel admiration for the French 
genius and have respect for their political 
aims. The Germans will feel no hatred 
against England either. To be sure, they 
think the English selfish, and they have suf- 
fered from that selfishness. But they look 
up to the masterful energy with which Eng- 
land pushes its world-wide interests of state. 
There is no nation of Europe with which 
Germany would like more to live in deepest 
harmony and peace than with Great Britain. 
Nor do the Germans grudge the advance of 
Russia from darkness; they have sympathy 
with the Russian inner struggles; they love 
Dostoievsky and Tolstoi. No, Germany's 
cause would be lost from the start, if only 
hatred could lead to victory. 

But something greater is at stake. Ger- 
mans are attacked; they must defend their 

8 



THE AGGRESSORS 

homes and they must defend them against an 
overwhelming number. Germans know that 
the fight is not for distant places or for the 
gains of the mighty, but that they must pro- 
tect wife and children, and a grim stolid de- 
termination will hold them firmly until the 
hour of decision is over. But they know also 
what a German defeat must mean to the ideal 
civilization of the world. The culture of 
Germany would be trampled down by the 
half-cultured Tartars. Strategically this 
may be Germany 's war with France and Bel- 
gium and England as well as with Russia. 
But seen from the higher standpoint of cul- 
tural world history, it is exclusively a strug- 
gle between Russia and Germany. They are 
truly in an internal conflict. Russia feels 
that it must gain political predominance over 
its neighbor in order to win complete control 
of the Balkan. This is the meaning of the 
war. France and maybe England are simply 
making use of Germany's embarrassment 
and danger in order to tear Alsace-Lorraine 
and the African colonies and the world com- 
merce from it, while it is forced to wrestle 
with the eastern giant. 

Yet I trust in Germany's armor, even 
9 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

though the enemy is overpowering. I trust 
in it, because I know that the German army 
is the whole healthy nation, held together 
not by a ruler 's will nor by the enforced de- 
mand of a class but by the one common pas- 
sionate wish to defend the German land 
against envy and jealousy. The tradition of 
a full century from the solemn days of 
Prussia's liberation from the Napoleonic 
yoke has ingrained in every heart this devo- 
tion to the army. Moreover, Germany has to 
a high degree overcome the apparent conflict 
which made the other enlightened nations 
suffer: the conflict between militarism and 
culture. It made the training in the army an 
educative schooling of the whole population 
for efficiency in every line of national work. 
The service in barrack and camp became a 
time of personal happiness, of social growth, 
of vocational advance. Army and nation be- 
came one as in no other land. 

Finally, the German masses may not be 
quick and versatile but they are thorough 
and persistent. German thoroughness has 
carried the day on the battlefields of science 
and scholarship ; it cannot have failed in the 
maneuver fields where the war of the future 

10 



THE AGGRESSORS 

was prepared. The Germans who must fight 
to-day have been brought up under the 
shadow of the feeling that revengeful neigh- 
bors were waiting for the hour to burn their 
villages and their towns; they have never 
been relieved from 'this tension; they knew 
that they had to keep the edge of the Ger- 
man sword sharp. It became an organic part 
of their life. 

Most Americans cannot think themselves 
into this German sentiment. They fancy that 
the workingman and the man behind the plow, 
the business man and the university man, 
hate and despise the army and that the gov- 
ernment to-day is forcing the rifle to their 
shoulders. The Americans of our time have 
never known the dread that the neighbors 
may to-morrow break into their homes and 
destroy the happiness of their hearths. 
Spain and Mexico were intermezzos, no 
dangers: excitements, but not deepest life 
concerns. But avery German has known it 
otherwise from his childhood days. 

Nature formed from its clay no creature 
with more peaceful instincts than myself ; yet 
the thought of the army was intertwined with 
every phase of my life. It is almost typical 

11 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

that the earliest memory of my mind and 
the earliest preserved writing of my pen 
referred to war. Indeed, my conscious life 
begins with the vivid image of the scene when 
victorious hussars came back in 1866 from 
the battlefields of the short Prussian war 
with Austria. I was just three years old, and 
I see still how my parents held me on the 
window-sill and gave me a wreath to throw 
down on the riders when they came home 
from victory. The strong emotion must have 
impressed the picture on my consciousness, 
as I cannot remember anything before. And 
the first writing which was kept from my 
childhood was a childish poem written in 
1870 when I was seven years of age, on the 
day of the declaration of war between Ger- 
many and France. It began in the German 
rhymes: "Der Krieg ist erklart; in die Hand 
nun das Schwert" — "The war is declared; 
take the sword in hand." I could not fore- 
see that forty-four years later, far beyond 
the sea, I would have to begin once more my 
diary page — "The war is declared." 

With these two wars which my personal 
memory still embraces, the events began 
which led to the combinations of the present 

12 



THE AGGRESSORS 

war. In 1866 Prussia's predominant role in 
Germany was decided, but with a sure in- 
stinct for future needs, at the same time the 
political bridges were built on which Prussia 
and Austria could meet for the firm alliance 
of to-day. The war of 1870, recklessly stirred 
by the intolerance of imperial France, cre- 
ated the German empire, but at the same 
time it left in republican France that blind 
striving for the lost provinces which has con- 
trolled all its policies since that time. Again 
and again France threatened its neighbor 
with its warlike steps. I remember well in the 
early 'eighties, when I was a student in 
Heidelberg and the elections for the Reichs- 
tag were near, how our street corners were 
placarded with diagrams of fortresses and 
regiments showing the alarming growth of 
French preparations. There was no other 
talk among us students but the war which 
the French restlessness would force upon us. 
This feeling was aggravated when Russia's 
political ill will toward Germany became 
more violent. Soon came the time when we 
all were inspired by Bismarck's words, "We 
Germans fear God and no one else in the 
world." They echoed in every German 

13 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

heart and it was felt that they were meant 
for both the French and the Russian neigh- 
bor. The danger never disappeared. Some- 
times the tension became almost intolerable. 
Now the explosion has come. The Czar has 
decreed the war. France uses the long- 
hoped-for hour of Germany's danger. Ger- 
many is attacked on both sides ; Germany is 
forced to fight ; Germany must win or perish. 
But whoever wins, whoever loses, all Europe 
will suffer. 

The last day which I spent in Europe, sum- 
mer before last, I was in the ruins of Pom- 
peii. When the ship left the European coast, 
a dark cloud was hanging over Vesuvius and 
it looked as if the crater might break and 
endless masses of lava once more flood over 
the gay, flourishing villages. All the peo- 
ples of Europe have settled and toiled on the 
slopes of Vesuvius, and the crater has 
erupted, and the glowing torrent is again 
pouring over the homes of peaceful men. 
Will Europe, the beautiful, become a great 
Pompeii! 



n 

THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

Does the war fever make the whole world 
delirious? Are all feelings and emotions 
suddenly reversed, the sympathies of yester- 
day nothing but hatred to-day? Is the gigan- 
tic tragedy of Europe to be accompanied by 
a travesty of war on the pages of the Ameri- 
can paper world? We live in a neutral coun- 
try. Washington is not Petersburg; and 
yet can the outbursts of enmity toward Ger- 
many be harsher in the Czar's country than 
on Broadway? 

Only one year ago the leading papers from 
Boston to Washington and from New. York 
to San Francisco were outdoing one another 
in jubilant celebrations of William II, the 
peace Emperor, at the twenty-fifth anniver- 
sary of his splendid reign. The best men of 
the country, the stars in every line of work 
and thought, hailed the man on the German 

15 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

throne who had been the strongest force for 
European peace and who had led the German 
people to triumphs in every peaceful art and 
endeavor. To-day, exactly the same news- 
papers which had the superb Sunday supple- 
ments devoted to Emperor William as the 
greatest and noblest leader of our time, vitu- 
perate him like a cancerous growth on the 
body of European politics, which should be 
eradicated by the knife of the surgeon. The 
Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs must fall : 
that is the cry around Times Square. 

Millionfold family ties link the Americans 
with the German people; import and export 
of the land's products, import and export of 
art and science, of educational and of social 
ideas, import and export of respect and 
good will, have bound the United States and 
Germany and Austria closely together. To- 
day, one surging wave of hatred has swept it 
all away. The columns of the papers are 
filled with absurd calumnies and the silliest 
denunciations. If a tenth of that which the 
press brings out about the German people 
were true — yes, were even possible — all that 
it has said about them year by year would 
have been reckless lies. 

16 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

I believe sincerely that I should feel the 
same distress over this anti-German out- 
break, if my sympathies lay with the foes of 
Germany; because it deprives me of the 
ideal faith which has filled my heart for 
years, the faith in the fairness of the Amer- 
ican people. I have repeated incessantly 
in all my German writings about America 
that the desire for fairness is one of the 
deepest traits in the true American mind. 
How often have I heralded to the European 
readers the glory of the American law which 
treats everyone as innocent until the accusa- 
tion is proved and never condemns until the 
accused has had the fullest chance to pre- 
sent his side. Must I reverse all my en- 
thusiasm and my faith? American public 
opinion has accused and condemned the unde- 
fended; unfairly, cruelly, unworthily. 

But may not the social psychologist recog- 
nize another feature in the American mind 
which allows a different explanation of this 
baffling injustice? Nobody can analyze the 
mental habits of the new world without notic- 
ing the unusual degree of imitativeness and 
suggestibility. Every emotional excitement 
produces a state in which the individual loses 

17 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

his strength of intellect and will and charac- 
ter and becomes a mere automatic mechanism 
in which the thoughts and feelings and im- 
pulses of his neighbor control his mind. No 
other nation is so inclined to like uniformity 
and monotony in social life and ideas; none 
has so little room for individual differences. 
The American idea of a gentleman is of a 
man who is not conspicuous ; and the crowd 
always wants to follow the band wagon. 
Everyone tries to be ' ' in it ' ' ; everyone wears 
the same collar and the same hat, and reads 
the same novels and thinks the same about 
Europe. There is a lack of individual re- 
sistance to prescribed opinions which pro- 
duces in excited states a colorless whole- 
sale judgment which may be entirely dif- 
ferent from the natural stand of the sober 
single, individuals. 

I still trust that just this is the case now. 
Public opinion against Germany has not re- 
sulted from the unfairness of the single in- 
dividuals but from this thoughtless impulse 
to imitate as soon as a great excitement per- 
turbs the balanced mood. The first days the 
newspapers were filled with cablegrams 
from Germany's foes. Incredible rumors of 

18 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

German atrocities, highly-colored reports of 
German evil intentions, falsehoods about the 
German people and the German leaders, were 
thrown into the editorial offices from the 
English cables. The Germans had no chance. 
The papers reproduced these reports simply 
as they received them; the public in its ex- 
cited frame of mind accepted them without a 
grain of salt. 

This at once gave to public opinion a vivid 
impulse against Germany, and this first 
impulse of the crowd worked havoc in the 
editorial rooms. The newspapers, always 
eager to cater to the appetite of the masses, 
wanted to serve this new anti-German in- 
stinct. The result has been that they have 
not only reproduced the colored news but 
exaggerated its one-sidedness and have be- 
come more Catholic than the Pope. Every 
hateful bit of cable news must now flare out 
in big headlines. It is a systematic stirring- 
up of the anti-German sentiment, and the ab- 
normal increase of suggestibility in the mind 
of the masses has deprived them of the 
power to discriminate, to judge, to be fair. 

Those who are shocked by this wild onrush 
of anti- German sentiment ought not to think 

19 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

only of their heartfelt pain and distress of 
to-day; they ought to think of the threaten- 
ing dangers of to-morrow. This clash of 
public opinion is not comparable to the 
wrangling on political issues. If America 
allows the spreading of such bitterness 
toward the German and Austrian nations 
from which almost a fourth of the American 
population descended, the American atmos- 
phere itself will become poisoned. The inner 
harmony of the nation will be threatened. 
America must remain neutral, must listen 
patiently to both sides and must be ready to 
sympathize with the defeated, wherever man- 
kind suffers. But more than that, American 
public opinion will necessarily have influence 
on the war itself. Those who foster this 
blind hatred for the land of the Teutons are 
morally pushing American citizens into the 
service of the Czar. America is ordained to 
be the great mediator in this world struggle, 
as the one great nation which is not imme- 
diately involved. 

At least one duty falls at once on everyone 
who recognizes how public opinion has been 
led astray : the other side must be set forth. 
There is so little acquaintance with the true 

20 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

causes of the war, such grotesque misunder- 
standing of the true conditions, such dis- 
torted perspective of European policies, that 
no one who knows the truth has a right to 
shirk this duty of proclaiming it. Almost a 
week of the war has passed by; so far I see 
not a single word against this unfair treat- 
ment of Germany. But someone must shout 
his "I accuse" against this sentiment of hate 
and must demand fair play from the masses 
who are eager to lynch. 

Can the Americans blame me for speaking 
the first word? Have I not done exactly the 
same for them on European soil? I was 
brought up in Europe's unfair prejudices 
against America. In Germany, in France, in 
England, everywhere, a silly caricature ' of 
the true American prevailed— the vulgar, 
semi-cultured American who does not know 
anything but smartness and the chase of the 
dollar. As soon as I recognized the brutal 
unfairness of these European ideas, I felt it 
as my personal task to fight this anti-Ameri- 
can sentiment in Europe. From ever new 
angles, I drew the picture of the true Ameri- 
can, full of idealism and spiritual enthusiasm 
and fairness; and my efforts were not in 

21 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

vain. When the Spanish- American War was 
at its height, not a few German papers 
boasted of their anti- American feeling. It 
remained mild and was incomparable to the 
hatred against Germany which we see around 
us now. Yet I left no chance unused ; I bom- 
barded that anti- Americanism day by day, 
and the effects were felt. What I have done 
so persistently for twenty years in the in- 
terest of America may I not do for twenty 
weeks now in the interest of my fatherland? 
I have learned, like so many Germans in 
America, to see both countries with the eyes 
of love and to feel that the mutual under- 
standing of the two countries and their mu- 
tual fairness are daily needs in times of 
peace : how much more are they needed when 
the emotions are confused, and the world is 
wild, and mankind is drunk with blood. 

Fortunately the American newspapers 
have often proved their trust in my sincerity. 
I shall not fail them. I have begun at home. 
The editor of the Boston Herald has asked 
me to say a frank word for the German side. 
I am giving the following plea for justice. 



22 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

FAIR PLAY 

The European war broke into the calm of our 
summer, quick and unexpected, but still quicker 
and still more unexpected by any lover of fair 
play was the vehement turn of the American press 
for the Russians and against the Germans. What- 
ever Germany or Austria did was seen through 
the spectacles of the enemy. Their motives ap- 
peared tainted, their actions against the rules of 
the game ; they had no just cause and no morals ; 
they were not worthy of American sympathy. Of 
course, some pretext can be found for every par- 
tiality, and it is not difficult to foresee how this 
game can be played on. If Germany's enemies 
are defeated, the American nation must be with 
them because it is always with the weakest, al- 
ways with the under dog; but if they are vic- 
torious, the American nation will be with them 
too, because it loves a spirited fighter and a tri- 
umphant power. Yet it is just Germany which 
dares a spirited fight and which is the weaker, 
forced to fight, two nations against five. 

The naked news which the cable brings helps on 
this cruel game. The average American reader 
has no idea how much anti-German feeling is in- 
fused into the so-called facts which are sent over 
the ocean. He sees that the news is dated from 
Vienna or Berlin and he does not know that most 
of the American correspondents on the continent 
for many years have been Englishmen who never 

23 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

saw America and who serve first of all their home 
papers. And even the few American journalists 
on the spot devote most of their energies to Lon- 
don papers and receive from there the daily ad- 
vice and the daily prejudice of English rivalry. 

But does the news at least find fair play when 
it arrives? What the French or the English gov- 
ernment proclaims stands gloriously on the first 
page; what the German government replies is 
hidden somewhere in a corner of the fifth. When 
Germany goes through Belgium, America shares 
the indignation of England to which it serves as 
a welcome pretext. But that France went into 
Belgium first is kept a secret in most American 
papers. This means playing the reporter's game 
with loaded dice. 

Yet even the kind of news which is dumped on 
us does not justify the editorial temper with which 
especially the New York papers appeal to our 
sense of superiority over medieval Germany. 
Typical is the way in which the decisions and 
deeds of the emperors are always treated as if they 
were purely personal autocratic caprices without 
inner contact with the national life. This better 
than anything whips up the democratic spirit of 
the new world. Who stops to consider that in the 
hour of war, and even of danger before the war, 
the American President has more personal power 
than any emperor except the Czar; and even he 
would be swept away if he obstructed the will of 
the people. Children like to fancy that kings run 

24 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

about with golden crowns on their heads and with 
purple cloaks. It is hardly less childlike to imag- 
ine that a proclamation like that of the Emperor 
Franz Josef was written by him personally and to 
construe it as if he made war on Servia because 
he wanted to take personal vengeance for the 
murder of his heir. Even the distant spectator 
ought to have seen that the whole tremendous 
pressure of the Austrian nation was necessary to 
force the old Emperor into a war which he re- 
sisted with all the instincts of a man who has suf- 
fered much and who wants at last his peace and 
rest. 

Is it really possible to doubt that Emperor 
William desired nothing but honorable peace with 
all the world ? For twenty-five years he has been 
the most efficient power for European peace. He 
has done more for it than all the European peace 
societies together, and however often the world 
seemed at the verge of war his versatile mind 
averted the danger. He knew too well and the 
whole German people knew too well that the in- 
comparable cultural and industrial growth of the 
nation since the foundation of the young empire 
would be horribly threatened by the risks of war. 
Can any sane man really believe the slander that 
all was a long prepared game which Austria was 
to start and in which Germany would willfully 
force the furies of war into the Russian realm ? 

No! this time every effort was in vain, and all 
good will for peace was doomed because the issue 

25 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

between the onrushing Russian world and the 
German world had grown to an overpowering 
force. The struggle between the two civilizations 
was imminent, and where such a historic world 
conflict arises, the will of individuals is crushed 
until they serve the will of the nations. The Slavs 
of the Southeast, the Servians, had defeated their 
oppressors, the Turks. It was inevitable that their 
new strength should push them to ambitious plans. 
It was necessary that they should aim toward a 
new great Slavic empire which would border the 
sea and embrace Austria's Slavic possessions. 
That had to mean the end of Austria, the crum- 
bling of its historic power. Such an inner, pas- 
sionate conflict, such an issue of existence must 
lead to explosions. Servians killed the Arch- 
duke. That was Austria's opportunity for an ef- 
fort to crush the power which aimed toward its 
downfall. But it was no less necessary historically 
that the largest Slavic nation, that the Russians 
should feel that Servia's cause was their own. 
Russia knew well that while it had recovered from 
the wounds of the Japanese war the Russian 
strength was still unequal to that of the German 
nations, but it knew also that it could rely on 
France 's latent longing to revenge itself for Alsace 
and on England's grumbling jealousy of the great 
German rival in the world's markets. At last the 
chances seemed splendid to strike the long delayed 
blow of the Eastern world against the German. 
The Czar was unable to resist the gigantic pressure 

26 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

of the hour ; his government mobilized against both 
Austria and Germany. 

Is there really any sense in blaming the German 
Emperor for actually declaring war before this 
Russian mobilization was completed and before 
Germany by such loss of time would have been 
brought to certain destruction? Four times he 
urged the Czar to abstain from the moving of the 
Russian troops to the frontier; most willingly he 
undertook to urge Austria to new negotiations. 
But the world contrast of the two civilizations 
was too deep; Russia could not forego its unique 
chances, and so it continued passionately to mo- 
bilize, trusting that the French guns would start of 
themselves. The German Emperor would have 
shamefully neglected his duties if he had quietly 
waited until the Russian armies were brought to- 
gether from the far East. He had to strike as 
soon as the war was certain, he therefore had to 
go through the formality of declaring war. But it 
was Russia which made the war, and it was part 
of Russia's war-making that it forced Germany 
to declare the war first. America undertook, 
without such a deep inner conflict, a punitive ex- 
pedition against Mexico, not unlike that of Austria 
against Servia. If at that time Japan had de- 
clared that it could not tolerate such hostility to 
Mexico and had sent all its warships toward Cali- 
fornia, would the President have genially waited 
until the Japanese cruisers entered the Golden 
Gate instead of putting an ultimatum to the 
27 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

Mikado saying that unless the ships stopped it 
would mean war? 

In this historic situation neither Russia nor Ger- 
many could really act otherwise. The great con- 
flict of civilizations was necessarily stronger than 
the mere wishes of peaceful individuals. But if it 
is such a gigantic conflict of Russian and Germanic 
culture, the sympathies of the progressive Amer- 
ican nation ought not to be so willfully misled and 
ought not to be whipped into the camp of the 
Cossacks. Americans ought not to rejoice when 
the uncultured hordes of the East march over the 
frontier and aim toward the most eastern German 
city — toward Konigsberg — the town of Immanuel 
Kant. 

If this war means such an inevitable conflict of 
the Russian and the Germanic world, at least it 
ought to be clear to everyone who can think histori- 
cally, that it belongs to the type of war for which 
the world as yet knows no substitute, the one type 
of war which in spite of the terrible losses is ul- 
timately moral. Surely no comment on this fight 
of the nations is more absurd than the frivolous 
cry that this is an immoral war. Every war for 
commercial ends or for personal glory or for mere 
aggrandizement or for revenge may be called im- 
moral, and thus the feelings with which French- 
men and Englishmen join the Eastern forces might 
justly be accused. But both Russians and Ger- 
mans stand here on moral ground, as both are 
willing to sacrifice labor and life for the conserva- 

28 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

tion of their national culture and very existence. 
Since the days of Napoleon, Germany has never 
gone into a war which was more justified by the 
conscience of history. 

To be sure, there is no lack of elements in this 
war which do hurt the moral feeling. In victory 
or defeat, Germans will hardly forget the flight of 
Italy, which, under the flimsiest subterfuges, has 
deserted its allies in the hour of need. And im- 
moral above all is the effort of the world to stran- 
gle the spirit of Germany by the mere number of 
enemies. That truly is not fair, no moral fight, if 
Germany and Austria are not to stand against 
Russia and Servia alone which together have a 
population equal to that of the two opponents, but 
are also attacked from behind by France and Eng- 
land, perhaps by Roumania and Japan, and last 
but not least by the misled public opinion of 
America. 

And this answers at once the pointed question 
which many American papers have discussed since 
the war began, the question whether the whole sys- 
tem is not fundamentally wrong, whether the arma- 
ments which were planned to protect countries and 
to keep the balance and harmony have not thrown 
them into a destructive war, and whether it would 
not have been better to rely on international arbi- 
tration throughout the world. The grouping of 
this war shows why Germany would have trampled 
on its own sacred rights had she laid the armor 
away and relied on the judgment of the other na- 

29 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

tions. Would she have had the slightest chance 
for a fair judgment if the economic rivalry in 
England, the vanity of revenge in France, the 
aversion of a lower culture in Russia and political 
jealousy in all Europe had been combined against 
her in an unholy alliance ? The jury would have 
been packed, prejudice would have swept the 
courtroom. No: unless the Cossacks with their 
pogroms were to crush the culture of Germany 
she had simply no resort left but to trust in her 
sword and in her prayer. 

Postscript 

Habent sua fata libelli ; in the weeks since 
its publication the "Fair Play" article has 
been reprinted in more than fifty large 
papers throughout the country and has 
brought forth a flood of letters to the editors 
for and against my plea. The first breach 
has been made and since then hundreds have 
rushed forward. The wall has not yet really 
been battered down. The anti-German sen- 
timent is still strong, but at least on the edi- 
torial pages of the best newspapers the de- 
sire to do justice to the German side can be 
felt. The high tide of bitterness is beginning 
to recede, and no longer is every bit of news 
favorable to Germany hidden in dark cor- 

30 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

ners. Young Viereck's brilliant weekly The 
Fatherland is helping splendidly. The Ger- 
man-American National Alliance under 
Hexamer's leadership is eagerly active. 
The Germanistic societies are wide awake. 
Forcible voices are heard in the protest 
meetings of the German-Americans from 
Boston to Chicago and farther West. 

Every day the situation improves; the 
public gets tired ; more and more public men 
demand at least justice, if we cannot have 
the truth, and the newspapers are beginning 
to yield to this mood of the morning after. 
A paragraph from the New York Tribune is 
to-day making the rounds through the press. 
It says: "The first authentic reports from 
American tourists trapped in Germany by 
mobilization are coming through. They com- 
pletely refute the earlier rumors of abuse and 
insult. Americans arriving in Amsterdam 
from Berlin told countless stories of kindness 
and needed assistance at the hands of Ger- 
mans. It is almost needless to say that this 
was exactly what every fair-minded person 
expected. ' ' Certainly every fair-minded per- 
son expected it and therefore discredited the 
shameful rumors which ought never to have 

31 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

found their way into a decent American pa- 
per. But the fair-minded persons kept si- 
lence and unfair-minded ones boisterously 
filled all the channels of public opinion. Soon 
we shall hear that all the other wild rumors 
and denunciations of the Kaiser, of the army, 
of the government, of the people, are "com- 
pletely refuted' ' and that ' ' every fair-minded 
person expected it. ' ' 

But the German cables remain cut ; all the 
news is censored in London and Paris. We 
must expect that the first version of every 
future event will also be a slap in the face of 
German sympathizers, and only a week later 
when the interest has gone into other direc- 
tions the truth about the half-forgotten event 
will leak out. Yet even the most suggestible 
reader is beginning to discover the trick when 
it is played too often. When the big head- 
lines tell him again that the German soldiers 
slaughtered the babies yesterday in the town 
which they captured, he will conjecture for 
himself that in reality they probably slaugh- 
tered some chickens for which they paid in 
full. 

Even the causes of the war are slowly 
being seen with the eyes of justice. Leading 

32 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

men have returned from Europe and say 
frankly that America blundered when it 
blamed the Emperor instead of the Czar. 
Even the strongest master of international 
law in the country, the honored dean of Co- 
lumbia University, Professor Burgess, has 
called a halt to the reckless public opinion. 
He knows the politics of Europe as few 
Americans can. His arguments are per- 
fectly convincing: it is Russia's war against 
Germany with the selfish support of England 
and France. The anti-German sentiment can 
to-day no longer find any arguments of his- 
tory or of politics or of international law; 
it is nothing but prejudice. 

Anyway, we have to-day two large camps 
in the country: the one controlled by anti- 
German sentiment; the other by fair play 
sentiment; and the second is growing with 
every hour. At first only a few Germans 
gathered there; rapidly it filled with Ger- 
man-Americans; the Irish swept in who did 
not trust the Home Rule peace ; the Russian 
Jews joined who laughed at the Czar's flat- 
teries; the Swedish and the Norwegians 
came who foresaw the fate of the North if 
Russia should triumph; and slowly the 

33 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

Anglo-Saxon Americans kept breaking off 
from the majority, demanding fairness in- 
stead of blind hostility. And this fair play 
party is already strong enough not only to 
make declamations and appeals but to en- 
force neutrality in the deeds of the common- 
wealth. Two weeks ago the banking firm of 
Morgan would have found jubilant approval 
throughout the country for its plan to raise 
a great war loan for France, a subtle scheme 
of anti-German war-making which the inter- 
national law could not prohibit. Now the 
reception is cool ; the fair play party has be- 
come a power. Even the politicians figure 
it out that election days may be reckoning 
days. It may be safer for them to be fair 
than to be unfair in a European conflict, and 
the political ' ' safety first ' ' movement makes 
them forget what they wrote in those first 
ugly days of August. The chief point is that 
the. fair play party is steadily growing, and 
the anti-German party from day to day 
shrinking. In the fair play party the Presi- 
dent of the United States himself has em- 
phatically taken the leadership. The leader 
of the anti-German party — leader by age, by 
authority, by mastery of diction and by the 

34 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

importance which the press gives to his ut- 
terances—is Charles W. Eliot. 

The programme of the two leaders is clear 
and simple. President Woodrow Wilson 
writes : < < Every man who really loves Amer- 
ica will think and speak in the true spirit of 
neutrality, which is the spirit of impartiality 
and fairness and friendliness to all con- 
cerned. ... It will be easy to excite pas- 
sion and difficult to allay it. Those responsi- 
ble for exciting it will assume a heavy re- 
sponsibility, responsibility for no less a 
thing than that the people of the United 
States may be divided in camps of hostile 
opinion, hot against each other, involved in 
the war itself in impulse and opinion if not 
in action. ... We must be impartial in 
thought as well as in action, must put a curb 
upon our sentiments. ... I venture, there- 
fore, my fellow countrymen, to speak a sol- 
emn word of warning to you against the 
deepest, most subtle, most essential breach 
of neutrality, which may spring out of par- 
tisanship, out of passionately taking sides.' ' 
The leader of the opposite party, Mr. 
Charles W. Eliot, on the other hand writes— 
and some papers have for evident reasons 

35 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

given larger display to his words than to 
those of the President — the following ap- 
peal: "Although the people of the United 
States mean to maintain faithfully a legal 
neutrality, they are not and cannot be neu- 
tral or indifferent as to the ultimate outcome 
of this titanic struggle. It already seems to 
them that France, England and Russia are 
fighting for freedom and civilization. . . ." 
"American sympathies and hopes cannot 
possibly be neutral for the whole history and 
present state of American liberty forbids. 
For the present thinking Americans can only 
try to appreciate the scope and real issue of 
this formidable convulsion and so be ready 
to seize every opportunity that may present 
itself to further the cause of human free- 
dom. . . ." Germany has entered into this 
war "rashly, and selfishly, and in a bar- 
barous spirit.' ' 

Those who belong to the fair play party 
must gratefully hail every word of President 
Wilson and deeply regret every word of his 
eloquent opponent. But they would not only 
dissent from this advice to the nation to 
seize every opportunity for attacking Ger- 
many, but they would insist that even the 

36 



THE ANTI GERMAN SENTIMENT 

facts which Mr. Eliot gives in his surprising 
proclamation are utterly wrong. There is 
nothing rash in Germany's going to war. 
After almost forcing peace on Europe for 
twenty-seven years under most difficult con- 
ditions, the Emperor had again made every 
effort to preserve peace while the Czar con- 
tinued mobilization; but finally there came 
the hour in which any further delay would 
have meant certain defeat for Germany. 
Nor was there anything selfish, as Germany 
had obviously not the slightest desire for 
territorial aggrandizement in Europe, but 
had only the one aim to protect itself against 
the armies of the Cossacks, Even when the 
war with Eussia had become unavoidable, 
Germany strained every effort to keep peace 
with France. And when even that failed, it 
expressed its readiness to guarantee that it 
would leave intact not only France but even 
the French colonies, if at least England 
would remain at peace. But all these na- 
tions insisted on war— was it selfish that 
Germany dared to defend itself? 

The "barbarous spirit" refers evidently 
to those gruesome stories of German cruel- 
ties with which the enemies of Germany have 

37 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

tried to discredit its cause. To be sure, even 
they read like mild girls' stories compared 
with the reports of the French, the Belgian, 
the Russian atrocities with which the Ger- 
man papers and letters are filled. Is it really 
possible to condemn a nation of highest cul- 
tural achievements for barbarism on the 
basis of such testimony for the prosecution? 
— the Salem trials of the witches were more 
objective. The climax, we hear, were Ger- 
man cruelties in Belgium. They transformed 
all Louvain into a mere heap of ashes. A 
few days later we heard that the cathedral 
and the city hall and the art treasures had 
not been touched. Still a day later we heard 
that the Belgian people were coming back 
to Louvain to their work. At the day of this 
writing the papers bring over the ocean the 
report of the first investigation of the case 
by unpartisan Americans. Representatives 
of the Associated Press, of the Saturday 
Evening Post, of the Chicago Daily News, 
and of the Tribune, have joined in an exam- 
ination of the true facts ; they say and pledge 
their professional and personal word for the 
truth of the statements : We unite in declar- 
ing the rumors "of German atrocities 

38 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

groundless; after spending two weeks with 
and accompanying the troops upward of one 
hundred miles, we are unable to report a 
single instance unprovoked. We are also un- 
able to confirm rumors of mistreatment of 
prisoners or noncombatants with the German 
columns. This is true of Louvain, of Brus- 
sels, of Luneville, and Nanteuil. We visited 
other places without substantiating a single 
wanton brutality. Numerous investigated 
rumors proved groundless. Everywhere we 
have seen Germans paying for purchases 
and respecting property rights as well as 
according civilians every consideration. The 
discipline of the German soldiers is excel- 
lent, as we observed." 

But Mr. Eliot bases his horror of Germany 
also on the alleged facts that there the mon- 
arch alone can make war, while the national 
executive in a true liberal state ought not to 
"use the national forces in fight until a thor- 
oughly informed national assembly, thinking 
with deliberation, has agreed to that use." 
The fact is that not the Kaiser, but the Ger- 
man upper chamber, the Bundesrat, has to 
decide on war, and that the lower chamber, 
the Reichstag, has to vote the necessary 
39 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

funds. Both were unanimous, including the 
Social Democratic party, and their delibera- 
tions took more time than those which led to 
the American war movement against Mexico. 
Mr. Eliot, moreover, is under the impres- 
sion that the Germany of education and art 
and science is against this war and is any- 
how not in sympathy with Germany's im- 
perialism. The real people, he thinks, are 
driven into the war by an aristocratic 
bureaucracy. Englishmen to whom commer- 
cialism is everything have often spoken like 
this. They would prefer that the Germans 
write poems and music as in the good old 
times, but leave colonies and world trade to 
Great Britain. Yet America is not Eng- 
land's business partner. As to the people at 
large, one figure speaks loudly enough: in 
spite of the army of more than three mil- 
lions, still two millions more have offered 
themselves as volunteers, far more than the 
government can accept. On the same day 
that Mr. Eliot's appeal for anti-neutrality 
appeared, the noted leader of the American 
pacifists, Mr. Edwin D. Mead, wired from 
London a report about the German situation. 
He had spent the weeks of war in Germany 

40 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

and had really studied the situation. He 
says: "Apparently there is not a man or 
woman in Germany who does not believe 
Germany's case to be absolutely just and 
right; they think the war is an imperative 
defense of the country against the surround- 
ing circle of jealous enemies. The Social 
Democrats take this position as well as 
others.' ' Mr. Mead saw many of the leading 
scholars and educators. "All spoke essen- 
tially alike and statements to the same effect 
were published while I was in Berlin by 
Professor Harnack, Ernest Haeckel and Ru- 
dolf Eucken." Who are the people whom 
Mr. Eliot wants to save from the ruthlessness 
of the Emperor if not the Social Democrats 
and the two million volunteers? Who are 
the men of culture, if not the Harnacks and 
Haeckels and Euckens? The Emperor acted 
as their agent. No president of a republic 
could have been more the spokesman of a na- 
tion. 

Mr. Eliot finally speaks of the German and 
Austrian armies as "brute forces." Is the 
French army or the English navy less a 
brute force 1 Would it have been more demo- 
cratic and wiser for Germany to be satisfied 

41 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

with an army of tender mildness? It would 
have been crushed by its neighbors at once 
and completely. The leading civil naval au- 
thority of America, Mr. G. v. L. Meyer, has 
already declared that the European war of- 
fers to America only one great lesson, name- 
ly, that America must build at least sixteen 
dreadhaughts in order to control the Pacific 
as fully as England now controls the Atlan- 
tic. Is that less brute force? Can anything 
but brute force be in question as long as 
war is not abolished entirely? Does that 
make Germany contemptible while it makes 
England admirable? No: Mr. Eliot's argu- 
ment against President Wilson cannot be 
maintained. 

The fair play party does not consider it a 
duty to find a moral culprit in this war, to 
bear the blame and indignation of the world. 
There may be no moral wrong on any side. 
Every one of the great nations did that which 
was morally right and necessary in its his- 
toric development. This war might have 
been delayed a month, perhaps a year, but it 
had to come: the European tension had be- 
come too strong. Germany and Russia had 
come to a point where no possible arbitra- 

42 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

tion, but only strength could determine 
whether east Europe or central Europe 
would control the Balkan. It was the ethical 
duty of the Eussians to strain every effort 
for this expansion of their influence, and it 
was the ethical duty of the Germans and 
Austrians to strain every effort to prevent 
it. In the same way it was the moral right 
of France to make use of any hour of Ger- 
man embarrassment for recapturing its mili- 
tary glory by a victory of revenge. And it 
was the moral right of England to exert its 
energies for keeping the control of the seas 
and for destroying the commercial rivalry of 
the Germans. No one is to be blamed. 
Every nation, therefore, entered into this 
war equally with the feeling that it was 
fighting for a just and solemn cause and that 
it was performing its national duty. No 
American has the right to destroy this moral 
equilibrium and to decide without proof and 
without historical understanding that the 
one side did morally right and the other be- 
haved immorally. 

It is quite a different question, which may 
well be raised without interfering with fair 
play, whether or not mistakes have been 

43 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

made. Some have said that Germany made 
a mistake. It ought to have deserted Aus- 
tria in the same way that Italy deserted it. 
In that case Austria would have been dis- 
membered by Russia. The Slavic provinces 
of Austria would have been combined with 
Servia. Russia would have gained the con- 
trol of the Balkan, but Germany would not 
have been forced to fight alone against five 
nations. Germany might even have joined 
Russia and would have easily captured the 
German parts of Austria. It would have 
been a great gain for Germany's territory. 
Yet the Germans are convinced that the na- 
tion and the Emperor made no mistake when 
they decided in the opposite direction. If 
they had not done so, the result would have 
been an increase of Russian world power 
which they would have considered a blow to 
west European civilization. Above all, it 
would have been an act of barbarous faith- 
lessness. The pledge of assistance to Aus- 
tria has often been a heavy burden to Ger- 
many, but Germans have remained loyal to 
it, as this is not only a routine agreement 
like the neutrality treaties which no nation 
of the old or the new world ever considered 

44 



THE ANTI-GERMAN SENTIMENT 

binding in an hour of national life and death, 
but a pledge of international honor which no 
one breaks without moral humiliation. 

Many in the fair play party, and I am one 
of them, believe rather that a mistake — not 
a moral wrong, but a mistake of judgment — 
was made by England and France. They did 
their nearest duty in the interest of the near- 
est good, the destruction of the political and 
commercial rival on the right of the Khine. 
Their mistake was not to see that this pass- 
ing duty to their countries was greatly out- 
weighed by a higher duty the goal of which 
lies further off. They cannot crush Germany 
without helping Russia to an irresistible 
power which ultimately must subjugate the 
whole western civilization. They sacrifice 
the lasting cultural gain for a short tempo- 
rary comfort. They would have served man- 
kind more judiciously, if they had joined 
Germany in the struggle against the Russian 
giant. Every American has the right to 
point out such errors in a historical spirit. 
That is no attack against the morals of a na- 
tion ; that is no kindling of hatred ; that is in- 
comparable with the denunciations which the 
anti-German party thunders against the one 

45 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

people which is suddenly attacked by the 
guns of all Europe. America ought to be no 
more anti-German than anti-French or anti- 
English. America ought to be the peace- 
maker of the world and not the pacemaker 
to any warring nation. 



in 

THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 

I never before saw so many American and 
German flags intertwined as to-day in the 
gaily decorated streets of Utica. It was a 
splendid procession of American troops, 
German-American societies with their ban- 
ners and picturesque floats with scenes from 
the War of Independence, and from German 
and German- American history. We were to 
unveil the statue of General von Steuben. 
Hundreds of thousands had streamed to the 
town ; every house was gay with waving flags 
and with black, white and red decorations; 
every window crowded with cheering 
throngs : truly it was German day. 

When through the long avenue of elms we 
reached the monument, the sight from the 
speaker's stand was overwhelming. The 
German-American population had streamed 
out and ten thousand men and women sur- 
rounded the spot. The German songs rolled 
47 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

through the air; the New York state regi- 
ments passed the bronze statue of the great 
soldier. It is a fine work of art. You can 
really imagine that this was the stature and 
the gesture and the look of that great war- 
rior who served through the Seven Years' 
War of Prussia, was adjutant of Frederick 
the Great and who then gave up everything 
which he had in his fatherland to serve the 
cause of American independence. You see 
in his face that idealism and romanticism of 
war which made him unselfishly throw away 
his position and income and comfort at home 
and offer his sword to the congress of the 
weak colonies. His features show that mar- 
tial energy with which he trained and or- 
ganized the American troops in Valley Forge 
until the victory was won. But at the same 
time this figure brings out that noble genial- 
ity and chivalrous kindness which made him 
so humanly attractive through his long sol- 
dier's career, until after a life of war he 
found the peace of old age here in Utica. It 
is a fitting monument to the man who was 
the right arm of George Washington. He 
did not seek the showy glory of the battle- 
field, but behind the scenes he was the or- 

48 



THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 

ganizer of victory. He did effective work 
silently as the German-Americans always 
have done in America. 

I had been asked to deliver the oration at 
the unveiling. I relied on the inspiration of 
the hour. I spoke in German language to 
men of German descent whose hearts were 
aglow with solemn emotion for the land of 
their parents and grandparents. I had heard 
their speeches and songs on the eve before in 
a large festival hall and there the Watch on 
the Rhine had resounded as I had never 
heard it before. 

I spoke about the threefold meaning of this 
monument. My favorite topic came first ; the 
need of discipline in our modern life. Steu- 
ben found men full of dash and courage, and 
yet they did not count until he taught them 
the greatest lesson in war as in peace, the 
lesson of subordination, of self-control, of 
obedience. No time ever needed this lesson 
so much as ours. Our whole civilization 
tends to make the selfish impulses and the 
reckless instincts triumphant. Our life has 
lost its inner moral discipline. The spirit 
of Steuben is needed by the American nation 
in its days of glory still more than when it 

49 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

was struggling hard for its independence. 
If we had more spirit of self-control, it would 
not be possible for public opinion to rush 
so blindly and thoughtlessly into the anti- 
German prejudice which is suddenly sweep- 
ing the country. 

The second aspect which I emphasized was 
suggested by the fact that German- Ameri- 
cans had erected this monument. I said that 
it showed that the Germans in America were 
finally conscious of their position, of their 
rights in this country, and of their duties to 
it. Too long they had lived under the illu- 
sion that America was an Anglo-Saxon coun- 
try and that all the other racial stocks were 
only tolerated as more or less welcome 
guests. This idea had imposed on them the 
duty of throwing off their German traits and 
of imitating the English characteristics. 
This arbitrary construction has finally been 
shattered. The German-Americans at last 
became aware that there are no hosts and 
guests in this land and that not England but 
all Europe is the mother country of the 
American nation. The glory of America re- 
sulted from the fact that many races con- 
tributed their distinctive achievements. The 

50 



THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 

Germans have discovered how fundamental 
their part has been in the development of 
the American nation, how they, with brain 
and brawn, have had their noble share from 
the pioneer days to the present time. 

A new sense of rights with a new sense of 
duty and responsibility has filled them; a 
new pride in the work of their ancestors has 
come to them; and out of this feeling they 
turn to the memory of a great leader like 
Steuben. To do honor to him is a pledge to 
remain loyal to the duties of the German- 
American citizens toward America. No 
German-American lives up to his responsi- 
bilities if he does not try to bring the very 
best traits of the land of his ancestors as his 
peculiar contribution to the young nation of 
the new world. But this is possible only if 
he never forgets that he is of German de- 
scent. As long as this feeling remains awake 
in his soul, he will not tolerate this great 
glorious country to be dragged into an un- 
fair stand toward the fatherland of Steuben. 
But finally I spoke of the monument as a 
symbol of America's gratitude for a German 
man who came to bring all which he had 
learned at home to the service of this coun- 

51 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

try. How many came after him — teachers 
and scholars, scientists and engineers, mer- 
chants and captains of industry, musicians 
and artists, ministers and reformers! All 
brought German civilization over the ocean. 
But soon after Steuben's day, American in- 
fluences, too, turned auspiciously eastward. 
New ideas were carried to the fatherland. It 
was a giving and taking, a mutual exchange : 
in our days no one has a right to ask who 
gives more and who takes more. The monu- 
ment is a symbol of joy in this cordial inter- 
course which helps so much toward mutual 
understanding. And only where such under- 
standing exists can we hope for sympathy 
and respect and friendship. We see in the 
passionate outbursts against the Emperor 
and Germany how much still remains 
to be done. "Fortunately America has now 
been for almost a hundred years at peace 
with the country against which the American 
armies fought under von Steuben. But with 
the fatherland of Steuben America has al- 
ways been at peace. This peace ought never 
to be broken.' ' A tremendous wave of ap- 
proval swept over the gigantic audience at 
these words. In closing I said : ' ' The Ameri- 

52 



THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 

can nation must maintain its neutrality at 
any price. It has no right to aid the enemies 
of Germany as long as it remains loyal to the 
memory of Washington under whom Steuben 
fought on this side of the ocean. It must not 
grudge the good fortune to Emperor William 
if victory blesses his sword as once before the 
sword of his great ancestor, Frederick, was 
blessed, under whom Steuben fought on the 
other side of the ocean. ' ' What followed was 
a demonstration of German-American feel- 
ing, enthusiastic and wonderful. 

In looking back to these Utica hours I feel 
that he calculates wrongly with American 
public opinion who fancies that the twenty- 
five millions in whose homes lives the mem- 
ory of German ancestors can be neglected. 
The wall of anti-German feeling will be 
broken down by the hammering of this titanic 
power. Not long ago the German- Americans 
were not aware of how strong they were, or 
rather they were not strong because they 
were not aware of their strength. They 
served faithfully, but did not dare to insist 
on respect and did not venture to ask for 
thanks. The last twenty years have changed 
their place in the world. While the German 

53 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

immigration decreased and the new incoming 
masses were recruited more and more from 
Italy and Turkey and Russia, the German- 
American spirit has steadily become 
stronger. The German- Americans have be- 
come conscious of their duties in the highest 
historic sense of their mission, and they 
demand their rights in the shaping of the 
country's fate. 

Their cause had only one element of weak- 
ness. The one great binding force was the 
memory of the past, and not a forceful, posi- 
tive programme. They sympathized with the 
Eepublican party as much as with the Demo- 
cratic party; their interests were divided 
on almost every economic question; religi- 
ously they were scattered ; their common love 
of German literature and music naturally be- 
came weaker with the second and third gen- 
eration; and so it happened most unfortu- 
nately that only the pitiful stein of beer ap- 
peared the one object of common wishes. 
The fight against prohibition, upon which the 
opinions of Germans might be just as di- 
vided as upon any practical question before 
the nation, was artificially made the center 
of German- American public activity; it was 

54 



THE GERMAN-AMERICANS 

bolstered up with great words of personal 
liberty. Nothing has hurt the German- 
Americans in their struggle for the place 
which belongs to them so much as the illusion 
that the negative side of the prohibition ques- 
tion can be in our present time a great vital 
issue. 

It was as if the German- American masses 
had only waited for a really convincing goal 
common to all in order to be filled with that 
enthusiasm which secures strength. The 
lightning of the European thunderstorm has 
suddenly shown them their true duty. The 
policy of this country which they love with 
their whole hearts must be one of sincere 
friendship not only with England but also 
with Germany. They will break down this 
anti-German agitation; they will punish 
every effort to inject hatred of Germany into 
the veins of the American political body. 
Their National German-American Alliance 
with two and a half million voters as mem- 
bers, their intellectual leaders and their eco- 
nomic captains of commerce and industry, 
their farmers and their workingmen, old and 
young, men and women, first generation and 
second and third, every religious sect, North 

55 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

Germans and South Germans, Austrians and 
Swiss — they will be united and will show a 
crushing power of which the reckless torch- 
bearers of German hatred did not dream. 

This European war will not reach its end 
without being deeply influenced by American 
public opinion. At an early or at a late 
stage, American sentiment will play its role. 
Since I heard the Watch on the Rhine thun- 
dering in the Mohawk Valley I know that 
twenty-five millions will take care that this 
national sentiment is ultimately not misled 
as it has been in the first hour of confusion. 
They will take care that this powerful Ameri- 
can influence cannot be prostituted to a 
breach of neutrality in order to back the 
allies of Russia who are trying to throw into 
the dust America's staunchest friend, the 
German nation. Never until to-day have I 
seen so many American and German flags 
intertwined. 



IV 

THE THREATENED PROVINCES 

The papers this morning brought a sketch 
of Germany as it will look after the great 
disaster. England, they say, and of course 
they must know, will be modest in its de- 
mands, and will take only the whole German 
fleet and the Kiel canal, besides the cost of 
the mobilization. France, to be sure, will in- 
sist on the billion dollars which it had to pay 
after the Franco-Prussian war, together with 
the interest for forty-four years, and will 
take not much more land than Alsace-Lor- 
raine. Eussia will grasp for Eastern Prussia 
with its Baltic seacoast to include Danzig. 
It was a slender Germany which was left in 
that gruesome picture. But how many 
American readers do really know what it 
would mean for Germany to lose Alsace and 
Prussia to the Danzig coast? 

Alsace ! Yesterday was the anniversary of 
the battle of Weissenburg, the first great 

57 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

struggle in the war for Germany's unity. To 
the American it is a battle name, colorless 
and commonplace. Weissenburg is to him 
one of the many little French towns in the 
French land which the brutal force of Ger- 
many has torn out of happy France and has 
crushed by blatant militarism, and which, in 
its suffering through almost half a century, 
longs to be taken home into the mother arms 
of the French people. But this is untrue 
and a hundred times untrue. It may be that 
nobody between the Atlantic and the Pacific 
knows better, and that it is thus nobody's 
duty to protest. But many a Fourth of 
August I have been on the hills of Weissen- 
burg and have seen the graves of the French- 
men and of the Germans who fell on the 
battlefield decorated with flags and wreaths 
by the Weissenburg people. Weissenburg 
and all Alsace are to me not geographical 
lines on the map and not political abstrac- 
tions, but they are part of my life. There in 
Weissenburg where forty-four years ago 
Germany's glory began, I found the happi- 
ness of my family life, found there my Ger- 
man wife, had there my wedding and my sil- 
ver wedding, returned there almost every 

58 



THE THREATENED PROVINCES 

summer. I must know better than the edi- 
torial writer how Alsace feels. 

Alsace is a German province with German 
traditions and German lifeblood. For a 
while French rule was forced on it, but it 
never became French. In the beautiful little 
old garden of my wife's parents I can never 
dream my summer dreams without thinking 
of the historic sacredness of that German 
soil. It is part of a large cloister garden in 
which a massive tower has been standing 
since the ninth century. In this garden, 
Monk Otfried lived who wrote one thousand 
years ago the first German epic poem in 
rhyme. This German tradition remained un- 
broken until Louis XIV, after he had laid in 
ruins the castle of Heidelberg, snatched 
Alsace from the German people. Then a 
long period of oppression began. This 
French rule was much more rigorous and 
intolerant than any German rule after 
1870. 

Moreover the Alsatians were never really 
accepted as Frenchmen. In the eyes of Paris 
they always remained only half French ; their 
French dialect appeared ridiculous. They 
disliked France and were disliked in France. 

59 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

It was no wonder that their resources re- 
mained undeveloped. Even the proudest city 
of Alsace, Strassburg, when it came into Ger- 
man possession in 1870, was after all only 
an overgrown village. To-day it is a wonder- 
ful, proud city with beautiful palaces, with 
one of the best equipped universities of the 
world, with noble avenues and parks, en- 
riched by Germany's good will as much as it 
was held down by France's indifference in 
the past. 

Alsace would be to-day perfectly happy in 
its natural German frame, if French longing 
for political revenge had not artificially kept 
alive agitation for jointure with France. To 
be sure, the German administration was often 
unstable; there was not sufficient unity of 
purpose. Sometimes the effort was made to 
win the population by overindulgence. As 
soon as such leniency was intolerably mis- 
used at the instigation of Paris, the regime 
was changed to the other extreme and the 
German language and German methods were 
sternly insisted on. As soon as that started 
up reactions, the other groove was tried 
again until the French societies again 
preached treason. One consistent policy in 

60 



THE THREATENED PROVINCES 

the German camp would probably have suc- 
ceeded better. But the real fault was with 
France, which refused to forget. If France 
after the breakdown of the hollow Napo- 
leonic empire had reconstructed its realm 
with the same spirit with which in America 
the southern states submitted to the decision 
of the Civil War, Alsace would be perfectly 
German to-day, and the whole military ma- 
chine of Germany would never have been 
built up. But France smarted under the 
memory of Sedan; it draped in black the 
statue of Strassburg in Paris and knew no 
prayer but for the recovery of the beloved 
provinces which it had despised until they 
were taken. 

Every piece of Alsatian arrogance was ap- 
plauded on Parisian boulevards, and the cari- 
caturist who drew my Weissenburg as if its 
teachers were idiots and its officers drunk- 
ards was heralded in France as a hero and 
his poor drawings crowned with glorious 
prizes. Only on account of this artificial 
stimulation from Paris, a part of the Alsa- 
tian people felt anxious to don their 
French costume. Our neighbors in Weissen- 
burg were two dignified elderly ladies whose 

61 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

brother had left their home after the Ger- 
man war and lives in Paris as a physician. 
Every summer he comes back to his native 
place. Those three good Alsatian people 
would never venture to go to a store and 
do their shopping otherwise than in the 
French language and with every stranger 
they must parade their French. But when 
they are at home among one another they 
always speak their good Alsatian Ger- 
man. 

Yes: Alsace is German; and if the over- 
whelming number should capture the prov- 
inces on the left of the Rhine and the tri- 
color should once more flutter over the 
Strassburg cathedral, Alsace would be for a 
while the glory of the Gallic nation, and a 
little later it would be again degraded to a 
second-class France because its people are 
not French but German. How long would it 
be before the rich Strassburg of the German 
empire would again be the neglected, impov- 
erished town of France? Is it really neces- 
sary for every American who contributes to 
the papers a word about Alsace simply to 
repeat that absurd cant about the "lost" 
provinces? 

62 



THE THREATENED PROVINCES 

About Alsace which the Frenchmen are to 
take we hear at least not a little in America, 
as everybody knows everything about it. 
But about the province of West Prussia with 
its capital Danzig which Russia has selected 
as its prize we never hear anything at all. 
The editorial writers seem not to be at home 
there. But there I am at home. I was born 
in Danzig, spent my youth there, and have 
gone back to my beloved native town when- 
ever I went to Germany. 

It is quite true: nothing which Russia 
might gain could be so valuable as Danzig 
with its harbor in the Baltic Sea at the mouth 
of the Vistula. A great seaport which can 
be used all the year must be the longing of 
Russia, which finds no outlet from its Baltic 
harbors during six winter months. The ice- 
free harbor in the east was after all the 
chief aim in Russia's fight with Japan; an 
ice-free harbor of the west is its hope in 
Germany, and Danzig's harbor is surpassed 
by few. We know Danzig's history since 
997. At the end of the fourteenth century 
three hundred ships brought goods there 
from England every year ; and at the end of 
the fifteenth more than seven hundred ships 

63 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

left Danzig's harbor yearly. Its world com- 
merce was often checked and always again 
came to power. In the last few decades it has 
developed its resources with new energy and 
is flourishing to-day. Will all this German 
work be lost to Russian greed? 

But what is Danzig's harbor compared 
with Danzig's beautiful streets? Americans 
who automobile through Germany are en- 
thusiastic over Nuremberg ; they do not know 
that Danzig is still more wonderful. Those 
squares and streets, houses and churches, 
halls and towers and city gates tell the fas- 
cinating story of five centuries of architec- 
ture in one of the richest cities of the North. 
They call it the northern Venice. The houses 
are filled with the arts and crafts of beauty- 
loving times and their fagades and their ga- 
ble roofs are the gems of eastern Germany. 
To stroll in boyhood days through the streets 
of Danzig is truly a liberal education. Will 
the Cossacks break into this paradise of 
stone? 

To be sure, it would not be the first time 
that the Russians would come to the doors 
of Danzig. In 1734 a Russian army besieged 
Danzig because it had taken sides in the 

64 



THE THREATENED PROVINCES 

fight about the Polish succession. It had to 
surrender, had to pay a million thalers to the 
Russians, and the free town had to send a 
delegation with pledges to Petersburg. 
After the dismemberment of the Polish 
kingdom in 1793 the old, free German town 
of Danzig joined the kingdom of Prussia. 
Soon the great oppressor of Europe de- 
stroyed the peace of the flourishing city. Na- 
poleon 's armies forced their way to the far 
east of Prussia and crushed Danzig by a 
most cruel siege. I remember well how my 
grandmother told me of the terrible suffering 
in her childhood when the population was 
hidden in the cellars of the town. Danzig 
surrendered to the French in 1807, but the 
suffering was not at an end. Napoleon 
squeezed millions over millions from the im- 
poverished citizens and filled the town with 
insolent French soldiers. Those years of 
brutal French oppression were the darkest 
time of Danzig's thousand years of history. 
At last Prussia's struggle for freedom 
broke out. In 1813 the Prussian army sur- 
rounded the remnant of Napoleon's troops 
which were concentrated in Danzig, and at 
this time the Russians were Prussia's allies. 

65 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

In January, 1814, came the happy day when 
the Germans and Russians broke the Napol- 
eonic force and expelled the French soldiers 
from Danzig. "With that day a new strong 
development of Danzig began. In January, 
1914, the whole city celebrated the anniver- 
sary of that glorious day. My oldest brother, 
who is the representative of Danzig in the 
Prussian parliament, delivered the official 
oration and could speak of a full century of 
splendid, peaceful progress. The grateful 
people of Danzig did not forget on this occa- 
sion at the beginning of 1914 the help which 
the Russians had given in delivering them 
from the French yoke. Is it really possible 
that 1914 will not come to an end without 
seeing the Russians once more before Dan- 
zig, this time not to expel the French but to 
help the French and to swing the knout over 
the beautiful culture of the industrious Dan- 
aig people? 

If a cruel fate were to deliver the province 
of West Prussia with its capital Danzig to 
the Slavs, it would be as if New England 
were handed over to Mexico as a Mexican 
colony with General Villa as dictator in Bos- 
ton. Americans do not know the eastern 

66 



THE THREATENED PROVINCES 

part of Prussia with its lovely forests and 
hills along the Baltic coast. Their pilgrim- 
age goes through the Rhine valley, goes to 
Hamburg and Berlin and Dresden and 
Munich, but they seldom find the way to the 
charms of the east. They may think that 
Germany, after all, is hardly changed if such 
slices on the east and on the west are cut 
off by its neighbors, as the diagrams of this 
morning's papers suggest. But I know one 
who would feel that Germany had perished 
if Weissenburg became French and Danzig 
became Russian. 



THE ENGLISH 

To-day I had luncheon in town with Rev- 
erend from Oxford. He had come 

over from England because he is interested 
in the psychology of religion which has had 
such a remarkable development in America, 
and he wanted to see what we are doing 
here. He had written to me before he sailed, 
and I gladly went in from the country to 
have some hours of serious talk about psy- 
chology. It is no wonder that it was not only 
psychology of religion but also psychology of 
the nations and psychology of war and peace 
which we discussed. 

He must have had exciting experiences. 
England declared war on Germany while he 
was in the midst of the ocean. The passen- 
gers had hardly any fears for their safety, 
as the captain remained in wireless contact 
with an English cruiser. They had arrived 
in Boston harbor only yesterday and my 

68 



THE ENGLISH 

friend thought he ought to return at once to 
be near his family. Yet through long stages 
of our talk he and I were not aware that the 
world was ablaze and we discussed heartily 
the recent tendencies in the philosophy of the 
soul and the theories of the subconscious. 
All that time we forgot that our native lands 
are hostile to each other. The coast of the 
philosophers' country cannot be threatened 
by battleships. 

Yet in a peaceful sense I never forgot that 
he was an Englishman, because he repre- 
sented that finest type of Englishman for 
which I have always had an especial sympa- 
thy and admiration. The English philistine 
is to me a good deal more tiresome than the 
American or the German philistine, but the 
highly cultured Englishman is to me not sel- 
dom more fascinating than a cultured Ameri- 
can and even than a cultured German. With 
the American you too often feel a certain lack 
of background: his knowledge appears sec- 
ond-hand. With the German you too often 
feel that the discussion is caught at one point 
and is becoming erudite. But with the Eng- 
lishman you sense that he has read his Plato 
well, and yet you can easily move hither and 

69 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

thither. It was an exquisite pleasure to meet 
this English minister with whom I had so 
many common acquaintances and so many 
common interests. And in the twinkling of 
his eyes was all the time that harmless, deli- 
cious superciliousness which the cultured 
Englishman in contact with another educated 
European never forgets when he talks about 
America. 

But above all we talked war. Of course, 
not warlike. He had been a member of that 
delegation of English clergymen who went 
to Berlin a few years ago in days of political 
tension in order to work for mutual harmony. 
He remembers with great satisfaction the 
personal cordiality of the Emperor on that 
occasion. He had always done his share for 
peace between England and Germany. He 
knew, too, all my efforts in the German 
sphere to bring not only Germany and 
America but Germany and England into 
more cordial relations. Moreover he felt the 
common ground of distress over the world 
calamity. Whatever the end of this struggle 
may be, it must mean the destruction not only 
of life and property but of so many deep 
cultural interests. The steamer with which 

70 



THE ENGLISH 

he had arrived had brought me a letter from 
the President of the International Congress 
of Philosophy to be held in London next sum- 
mer urging me to give the first address in the 
psychological meeting. We talked about it. 
Who can know to-day how many years will 
pass before a truly international congress of 
scholars can be held anywhere, and who can 
know whether London will be interested in 
philosophy next summer? Between the writ- 
ing of that letter and the reading, the ground 
had crumbled beneath our feet. 

But however much it was the same world 
which we saw with the same distress, our 
instincts, our emotions, our traditions, our 
loyalty, forced us to see it from different 
standpoints, and in spite of all frankness 
there was some last hope and belief which 
the simplest tact inhibited on our lips. Yet 
it was clear: with English stolidity he felt, 
that the gigantic navy of his country would 
calmly take care of the future, and he may 
have felt my apprehension that the young 
German navy could not be a match for the 
tremendous English fleet. 

But even with the deepest scrutiny he 
could not have found at the bottom of my 
71 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

soul the slightest hatred of England. In vic- 
tory or disaster I shall hardly change this 
emotional attitude. Yes: I regret sincerely 
that so much passion has embittered the Ger- 
man-English relation during the last few 
years. England and Germany have hardly 
seriously struggled against each other be- 
fore. Shoulder to shoulder they have fought 
together and the history of their contact has 
been above all a history of most fruitful ex- 
change. In my childhood days, in Danzig by 
the Baltic sea, when every year my father 
came home from his journeys to England, 
everything which he brought from London 
was to me like a gift from the wide world to 
which my imagination stretched out, and I 
remember well how the big sheets of the 
London Times impressed us children when 
they came to our house and appeared to us 
so gigantic compared with the flimsy little 
Danzig sheets of more than four decades ago. 
Whatever life brought me, I stood out for 
Great Britain. And even to-day when its ally 
may bombard my beloved Danzig home and 
its help to France and Russia may be the 
most cruel blow to my fatherland I cannot 
share the indignant sentiment of the German 

72 



THE ENGLISH 

masses. They feel against England not only 
anger and enmity on account of its act of 
jealousy but hatred and moral contempt be- 
cause its declaration of war involved race 
treason. I do not see a moral turpitude in 
a war against peoples with racial affinity. 

The whole idea of race obligation and race 
treachery is a construction which has never 
really been accepted by the political powers 
of the world. The appeal to race feeling has 
always been a welcome aid when the peoples 
of common race fought on the same side, 
but has never stood in the way when politics 
made them foes in war. No difference of 
race has ever weakened a political and 
strategical alliance. There cannot be a more 
unlike racial companionship than England, 
Kussia, France, Servia and Japan, and yet 
the whole history of mankind justifies this 
welding together of strange elements. The 
cousinship of Germans and Englishmen is no 
political tie. The banquet toast, that blood 
is thicker than water, served as regularly at 
German-English social gatherings of recent 
years as it did at English- American festiv- 
ities. But it has not in the least hindered 
England from declaring war against the 

73 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

brothers in blood, simply because printers' 
ink is still much thicker than blood. Abstract 
ideas and conceptions, interests and aspira- 
tions bind historical forces together. 

To rely on blood relation means to look 
on the development of mankind from a bio- 
logical point of view; the race is an ele- 
ment of natural science. But history is very 
different from the mere natural development 
of mankind. History is the working out of 
human ideas and volitions which must be 
understood in their meaning and cannot sim- 
ply be taken as products of racial qualities. 
No historical nation is one of pure race. 
The strongest nations have always been melt- 
ing pots of many races. There is behind 
human history no breeder of races who for- 
bids the struggle between the related peoples. 
England fought America; Prussia fought 
Austria; Japan fought China; Slavs fought 
Slavs in the Balkans. When Italy broke the 
Triple Alliance and denied in the hour of 
conflict the help which it had promised, the 
accusation of historic treason may have been 
morally justified, but England was not by its 
race community alone entangled in any 
obligation. 

74 



THE ENGLISH 

Yet while England in this sense did not 
commit a crime, I do think that it committed 
a great historical blunder. Its argument, 
freed from all cant, is quite clear. Leading 
Englishmen have said often without the 
slightest hesitancy that England, the mis- 
tress of the world markets, has found a for- 
midable rival in Germany's economic prog- 
ress. Backed by the incomparable advance 
of Germany's technical science and strength- 
ened by its methods of discipline and thor- 
oughness, Germany's commerce and industry 
stood more and more in the way. True 
friends of international peace recognized the 
means to meet this rivalry. All technical ed- 
ucation in Great Britain was to be improved, 
labor legislation and social reform were to be 
organized after the German model ; in short, 
an internal readjustment of England's indus- 
trial energies was to be carried through. But 
there seemed a shorter path open, and the 
instincts of the masses rushed into it. The 
discomfort of Germany's mighty rival be- 
came envy, and the envy turned into desire 
to overcome the successful ascendant by 
sheer power. Edward VII yielded to these 
instinctive desires of his nation. He sup- 

75 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

pressed the old English-Russian antagonisms 
and the old English-French enmity was for- 
gotten. The Triple Entente was formed. 
Three very unlike sources of anti-German 
feeling united in one stream of policy. This 
policy has triumphed in England's declara- 
tion of war. 

If the miraculous occurs and Germany wins 
against the world, England's mistake will be 
evident. But will England pluck the fruits 
for which it reaches out its hand even if 
Germany is crushed? The German defeat 
will satisfy the longing of France without 
strengthening it strategically, but it will im- 
mensely strengthen the Slavic nations. Rus- 
sia will be the great winner, and the new 
strength of Russia will be the real danger to 
the British Empire, which will be weakened 
anyhow by the exhausting war. Russia 
will at once push forward in Asia ; India will 
be liberated, and if India secures its indepen- 
dence, Canada and Australia will be lost. If 
the German dam against the Russian-Servian 
flood is broken, twenty years later the area 
of the British Empire will be pitifully small. 

But England has not only made a grave 
mistake by breaking the traditional peace 

76 



THE ENGLISH 

with Germany. It has, I cannot help feeling, 
somewhat lowered its dignity by a cheap ap- 
peal to the second-rate women's clubs in 
which nobody cares to study the real facts. 
Instead of saying straightforwardly that 
England believes that its economic interests 
demand the overthrow of the German rival, 
it poses as the protector of the higher moral- 
ity. Of course, this has been a familiar ges- 
ture of English political leaders whenever an 
act of selfish economic or political interest 
was to be excused before the English lower 
middle-class and the gallery public of the 
western world. But it was so especially ab- 
surd when England claimed that it had to go 
to war because it could not possibly tolerate 
the moral wrong of Germany's using the 
Belgian railways — England which had broken 
pledges upon pledges in Egypt, in Tibet, in 
South Africa and which, as Germany knew 
well, was prepared to use Antwerp as har- 
bor for its fleet. 

In the world of political realities no seri- 
ous man can doubt that England declared 
war because it believed in that fatal hour that 
its practical interests would be best served if 
it joined the powerful alliance at the moment 

77 



THE WAR AM) AMERICA 

at which Italy was showing unwillingness to 

keep its promise. Not a few believe that at 
the same time it was the cabinet's high game 

to overcome the inner wars which were tear- 
ing Great Britain: the fighting forces of 
Irishmen and the (dashing forces oi' militant 
suffragists. Lord Morley and John Burns 
stood out in the cabinet for England's ideal 
traditions; they refused to serve Russia. But 

the will to destroy the rival's trade in the 
lucky hour when it was attacked by force 
from all sides and deserted by its ally, was 
too tempting. On the athletic field, English- 
men would probably have refused io fight 
four against two and still to signal for help 
to the Japanese outsider as the fifth. But 
the world does not expect on the battlefield 
the morals o( manly sport. I am sorry I 
did not discuss this subtle problem oi' moral 
philosophy with my friend the Reverend 
from Oxford. 



VI 

PHILOSOPHERS 

We are overflooded with the superficial 

war talk of the men on the street and the 
women in the parlors and the sexless in the 
newspapers. It was high time For the great 
intellectual Lights to illuminate the darkness. 
v\t last the best known English sociologist 
and the most famous French philosopher 
have spoken and the world may listen. If. Gh 
Wells voices England; through Henri Berg- 
son Prance is speaking. Yet there would 
still have remained a chance that the en- 
lightenment would not be complete, as it 
might have happened that Wells would say 
one thing and Bergson the opposite; and then 
we neutrals would not have known after all 
which of the two beacons was the true one. 
But the miracle has happened. Those two 
philosophers, each equally famous for the 
originality of his thoughts and for the bril- 
liancy of his diction, have said exactly the 

V.) 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

same; thus every doubt is superfluous. We 
know now the complete truth. 

The truth which both have proclaimed with 
their superb and masterful style is simply 
that this war against Germany is a war of 
civilization against barbarism. " Never was 
a war," shouts Wells, "so righteous as is 
the war against Germany now. Never any 
state in the world so clamored for punish- 
ment.' ' "Germany and Austria are doomed 
to defeat in this war. There is no destiny in 
the stars and every sign is false if this is 
not so." "The monstrous vanity which was 
begotten by the easy victory of 1870 has 
challenged the world." "That trampling, 
drilling foolery in the heart of Europe that 
has arrested civilization and darkened the 
hopes of mankind for forty years, German 
imperialism and German militarism, has 
struck its inevitable blow." And so it goes 
on. Bergson's diction is always shorter. In 
an address before the French Academy he is 
reported to have burst into the beautiful 
words: "Glory to Belgium! Hail, little peo- 
ple with mighty swords! All the world 
knows that the struggle against Germany is 
civilization against barbarism. Our academy 

80 



PHILOSOPHERS 

has special authority to say so. Devoted 
mainly to the study of psychological, moral 
and social questions, the academy is simply 
doing its scientific duty in recognizing Ger- 
man brutality and cynicism as a retrogession 
to a savage state.' ' 

In different words both mean the same. 
German imperialism has arrested the world 
civilization, says the one; Germany is bar- 
barism, says the other. The war which 
shakes Europe is a fight against the degen- 
erate German land of retrogession. " Never 
was a war so righteous/ ' says Wells; and we 
may add, certainly, never was a power more 
fit to fight this noble struggle of civilization 
against barbarism than the people of Rus- 
sia, who are the only real makers of the war. 
Bergson, the pride of Paris, recognized it 
with fine instinct. Before he closed his words 
against German brutality, he said: "Our 
colleague, the Grand Duke Michaelovitch is 
now with the Russian army. Let us send 
him the salutation of the academy and of 
France." The Russian Grand Duke at the 
head of his Cossacks as the English and 
French symbol of the fight of civilization 
against the barbarism of Germany: that is 
81 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

original, that is a truly philosophical revalu- 
ation of all values. 

It is hardly worth while to answer the 
French academician when his ' ' creative evo- 
lution " transforms the thinker into a dema- 
gogic worshiper of Russian culture against 
German barbarism. He has devoted many 
years to the study of memory, but his own 
memory is defective. He has forgotten that 
all his best thoughts come from Germany 
and that the best of his success in France re- 
sulted from the fact that he brought German 
thoughts into the dryness of French philoso- 
phy. Bergson is nothing but Schopenhauer 
served with a piquant French sauce. Berg- 
son has not learned anything essential from 
France, and he surely did not find anything 
worth learning in Russia, but he did learn 
industriously from Germany. His gracious 
speech before the academy was evidently his 
way of expressing his thanks to the German 
benefactor; it was an intimate act, perfect 
in itself; it needs no reply. 

But it is different with Wells. His procla- 
mation has been cabled over the world and 
has reached millions. Above all, he has 
turned to his specialty of prophesying. He 

82 



PHILOSOPHERS 

has not only condemned Germany, but has 
sketched the dire fate of Europe if Germany 
and not Russia should win. Every word of 
it is misleading. I wish a sober statement 
in reply could reach the American masses as 
Wells has done. I am glad that Hearst of- 
fers me the three million copies of his Sun- 
day papers from New York to Los Angeles 
for a bold type reply. This is my answer : 

MR. WELLS AND THE FUTURE 
OF GERMANY 

This was to be expected: England would send 
not only her battleships against Germany, but 
above all her superdreadnoughts, Kipling and 
Wells. Kipling may still be exhausted from the 
fight about Ulster, but Wells has opened the can- 
nonading with word shells. 

But there are shells which do not reach the 
enemy because they explode in the air. Wells' 
bomb, German imperialism "has arrested civiliza- 
tion and darkened the hopes of mankind for the 
last forty years" — must be exploded by its inner 
grotesqueness. If Shaw or Chesterton had pro- 
claimed it, everybody must have enjoyed it. Theirs 
is the amusing art of taking a self-evident truth 
and turning it around. Or was it not until yes- 
terday an axiom that Germany since the founda- 
tion of the empire has been astonishing the world 

83 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

by its triumphs in science and art, in technique 
and industry, in progressive legislation and social 
reform ? Was it not self-evident that Russia could 
not compare with it, that France fell behind it and 
that England made tremendous efforts to keep pace 
with it? 

And let us not be deceived: these victories of 
civilization were won not by the " kindly, amiable 
mass of the German people " in spite of the im- 
perial government with its "trampling, drilling 
foolery," but at every pulse beat of historic life 
this people which Wells condescendingly approves 
was one and the same as that imperial state which 
he despises. That drilling foolery was the foolery 
of discipline, of subordination, of self-control. Not 
the amiability but the thoroughness made the Ger- 
man people efficient in its cultural work, not its 
kindliness but its moral obedience, not its geniality 
but its intellectual discipline. The Emperor 
was only the symbol of this united will of the na- 
tion. 

But Wells philosophizes not only about trampled 
Germany's pitiful past. As he has written about 
the future of America, his proclamation deals with 
the future of Germany, too. Only the defeat of 
Germany can open the way to disarmament and 
peace. Were Germany victorious, the world would 
become a barrack and culture would be buried. 
We all have often admired Mr. Wells' fantastic 
imagination, but even the boldest novelist cannot 
turn the world upside down. 

84 



PHILOSOPHERS 

What was the only reason that Europe turned 
into an armed camp during the last few decades? 
Was it Germany's desire to expand, to take any- 
thing away from its neighbors? Had any sane 
German the desire to add still more Poles to its 
Polish provinces or still more Frenchmen to its 
Lorraine? Every square foot of land taken from 
its Russian or French neighbors would have be- 
come a new burden to the German Empire. Ger- 
many wanted from its neighbors nothing but to be 
left alone. This they did not allow. Both France 
and Russia longed for German provinces. Their 
craving alone forced Germany to drill its soldiers 
to prevent its dismemberment. If France and 
Russia had pledged not to attack the land between 
them, Germany's army would have been superflu- 
ous. 

If Germany were victorious in this European 
turmoil the only essential effect for which it could 
hope would be liberation from the danger with 
which its neighbors have threatened it so many 
years. If France's and Russia's fortresses on the 
frontier were leveled, Germany might send every 
soldier back to the fields and factories, and 
international disarmament might possibly be 
nearer. 

If Germany is defeated, the militarism of 
yesterday will appear mild in contrast to the over- 
militarism of to-morrow. Russia and France could 
not leave the battlefield without disrupting the 
fatherland and forcing indignity on the German 

85 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

nation. Of course, some enemies cling to the hope 
that when the German lands have been devastated 
and when the people are starving, the mob may- 
march on and the banner of Socialism be unfurled. 
Yet, it is endlessly more probable that the nation 
in its tragic hour would sacrifice everything but 
its honor and would be welded together by the one 
idea of loyalty to the throne and of preparedness 
for the day of reckoning. It was cruelly thrown 
to the ground once before by the brutal Napoleonic 
force in 1806, and once before in 1813 it broke the 
yoke with heroic energy. 

But even if in this unequal struggle of six na- 
tions against two, the Napoleonic sword were to 
strike the death blow of the nation, Mr. Wells' 
prophecy would prove false. The spirit of 
Luther and Goethe and Kant and Beethoven might 
be lost, but the spirit of militarism would not be 
taken away from the world. That was not Ger- 
many's own. Annihilate Germany, the buffer 
state, and the world fight between England and 
Russia is imminent. The defeat of Germany 
would be the beginning of ages of war. The vic- 
tory of Germany alone could relieve this terrible 
tension. 

Of course, whether Germany is approaching vic- 
tory or defeat we here in America cannot know. 
The wires from Germany are cut; we are like the 
people in Paris in 1870, who saw one glorious 
French victory after another posted in the Paris 
street. But it is not enough for the London cables 

86 



PHILOSOPHERS 

to tell us of English and French and Russian and 
Belgian victories. If American public opinion is 
to be won over, the German motives must be falsi- 
fied. The Teutons alone must break the rules and 
perform every mean act. 

From Mr. Wells the fanatic we ought to appeal 
to Mr. Wells the delightful novelist, whose feeling 
for poetic balance could not approve such a silly 
story in which chivalrous heroes stand against 
villains and brutes. Some time, sooner or later, 
the cables will be laid again and we shall read the 
true* story which the God of history has written. 
Whether that speaks of German victory or defeat, 
nobody knows ; only this is sure : it will tell deeds 
of loyalty, of righteousness and of honor. 

This is my reply for the public. But as I 
wrote it, I felt deeply that I should have pre- 
ferred quite a different kind of an answer. 
I should have liked to have both Wells and 
Bergson, without a listening audience, quiet- 
ly with me under the elms of Harvard. Then 
I should have spoken to them in reply like 
this. Do you remember, Mr. Wells, how we 
had a good talk here a few years ago? I 
was impressed by your fine wide perspec- 
tives and by your lucid analysis of European 
affairs. And you, Monsieur Bergson, do you 
remember how we presided together over 

87 



. • >m\v 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

the Psychological Congress in Paris, and you 
most kindly helped me when my French 
failed me! And how we discussed only last 
year in Cambridge the problems of mind and 
matter? As you, Mr. Wells, greeted me with 
the words that you had just read my book 
on "The Americans/ ' and as you, Monsieur 
Bergson, told me that you had read every 
line which I have written with the exception 
of my book on "The Americans," evidently 
you two taken together are well acquainted 
with me, and you know how much we agree in 
essentials. Now, my friends and colleagues, 
in our little intimate circle think yourselves 
once more into such meetings on neutral 
ground and feel yourselves again not poli- 
ticians of the hour, not speakers for the gal- 
lery, but true thinkers as I knew you yester- 
day. Will you now still say that Russia's 
war against Germany which your country- 
men have unfortunately joined, is a war of 
civilization against barbarism? Is there 
even a shadow of doubt in your hearts that 
Germany's culture and Germany's national 
life expression are in every respect equal to 
that of France and England and that com- 
pared with this spirit of western and central 



PHILOSOPHERS 

Europe the Kussian world is one of dark- 
ness? Of course, you and I and men of our 
type everywhere have no personal taste for 
the instruments of force, for armies and 
navies and all that stern militarism, but at 
least we know that no single people is re- 
sponsible for these sharp-edged tools of 
power which the jealousy of the nations 
never allows to become dulled. We may re- 
gret that no better means have been discov- 
ered. Yet why must it make us unjust and 
unfair toward one people which is exactly 
like the others? And must it destroy all our 
historic understanding as if the excitement 
of the hour could lower the philosopher to 
the level of the unthinking crowd? 

Certainly, my friends, we ought not to imi- 
tate our great colleague Hegel who coolly 
wrote his logic in Jena while he heard the 
thunder of the Napoleonic cannons in the 
battle of Jena which destroyed Germany. 
Surely, we ought to be devoted to the solemn 
idea of nationality. But does this demand 
the denunciation of the most loyal seekers 
for culture as barbarians? Search the ap- 
peals to public opinion which I have pub- 
lished in these painful weeks in defense of 

89 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

my native country. I have hurled many a 
reproach against France and England. I 
thought it inexcusable for them to use the 
advantage of the hour to join Kussia in this 
fight. I regretted the revenge feeling of 
France and the ungenerous attitude of Eng- 
land toward its new rival in the world's 
markets. But I certainly did not call them 
barbarians because France strained its en- 
ergies to build up a powerful army for the 
regaining of Alsace and England insisted 
on the mightiest fighting navy of the world. 
I acknowledged that even the most peaceful 
governments must count with the sensitive- 
ness and passion of the nations. I never 
denied that Germany did the same as the 
others. I claimed for it only that its so- 
called militarism was less dangerous to the 
world, because it was the only country which 
had nothing to gain of its neighbors from a 
victory, and the world might therefore have 
known that it would never fight until its very 
existence was dangerously threatened. 

But above all, my colleagues, every utter- 
ance of mine was full of appreciation, nay of 
admiration, for the genius of your great 
peoples. I hailed France and England while 

90 



PHILOSOPHERS 

I disapproved of their last actions. Would 
it not have been more worthy of your splen- 
did work if you both had remained the true 
philosophical judges of recent history, ac- 
knowledging cheerfully that Germany's part 
in the war was one of historic necessity, the 
self-defense of a most highly cultured state 
against the onrush of barbaric masses and 
that France and England are only acci- 
dentally mixed in for political, strategical 
reasons, but without any reference to cul- 
tural issues'? You both must feel so, or all 
your life work would be insincere. You do 
feel so. Why should you not frankly say so ? 
Truly it seems to me not the smallest mis- 
fortune and perversion of this time of hor- 
ror that intellectual leaders like you two 
speak words which are nothing but will-o'- 
the-wisps, when you both ought to be the 
steady beacons shining over a dark and 
stormy sea. 



vn 

THE RUSSIANS 

The Russian army of eight million men 
has begun to flood into Germany. The 
Americans feel rather indifferent about 
Russia. It is true in the Russian-Japanese 
War ten years ago public opinion was 
quick to take Japan 's side, but by no 
means with the bitterness against Russia 
which has now broken out against Germany. 
The whole anti-Russian agitation of that 
time was hardly more than the artificial war- 
fare of certain newspapers which were in- 
fluenced by international anti-Russian bank- 
ing houses. The masses did not care at that 
time, nor was the later breaking-up of the 
commercial treaty with Russia really a pop- 
ular movement. 

The Americans do not think about Russia. 
They do not travel there and the only Rus- 
sians whom they meet at home come from 
within the pale and are not classed as Rus- 

92 



THE RUSSIANS 

sians. They shiver at the thought of Siberia 
and philosophize about Tolstoi, but the Rus- 
sian policy appears to the average American 
as an internal affair which is no concern of 
the world at large. He has not the slightest 
idea that Russia's policy is the strongest on 
this globe, the most persistent, the most 
pregnant with consequences for Europe, Asia 
and ultimately America. England is mighty, 
but Russia is mightier. All other nations are 
in a hurry, Russia has time ; all other nations 
economize with men, Russia can waste and 
waste and will always grow. All other nations 
have wavered in their enterprises, Russia re- 
mains unswervingly loyal to its aim of world 
control. Russia has seen reverses which 
would have crushed any weaker nation; de- 
feats in Turkey, defeats in East Asia; she 
hardly felt them. The clumsy bear withdrew 
his heavy paw for a while to put it forth 
with tremendous power at another spot. 
Russia is the one nation on earth which is 
invincible. 

The European nations felt this instinc- 
tively and tried to shield themselves when 
they joined in the great Berlin congress of 
1878 under the leadership of Bismarck and of 

93 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

Disraeli, to force down the Pan-Slavic move- 
ment of eastern Europe. The Slavic Balkan 
states gained new independence; Turkey re- 
mained strong; the way to Constantinople, 
which must be one of Russia's goals, seemed 
still long : but Russia had time. The colossus 
turned for a while to the other side ; it pushed 
toward Japan, toward China, toward India; 
Persia was devoured. The little setback with 
Japan was quickly made good. Meanwhile 
the times had become more favorable for 
new harvests on the European side. 

Russia has always been a master of diplo- 
macy. From the Russian standpoint the 
European problem is very simple. The great 
Napoleon recognized it. Only he underesti- 
mated the time it might take for Russia to 
force the Cossacks on all Europe. Russia 
makes no subtle discriminations; there is no 
German or French or English civilization; 
there is only a west European power against 
the east European Russian world. The great 
struggle to which it is pressing on must de- 
cide whether the east or the west will be the 
ruler. 

Russia does not care in the least whether 
Germany or France or England predomi- 

94 



THE RUSSIANS 

nates. The empire of the Czar knows only 
the Mongolian heathen in the East, the Mo- 
hammedan heathen in the South, the western 
European heathen in the West. But Eussia 
has time. To defeat western Europe it must 
divide it. Its cunning statesmen saw France 
willing to sacrifice everything if it could 
have revenge for 1870, and saw England anx- 
iously seeking for means to give a blow to 
the most disturbing rival in the world mar- 
ket. If Eussia allied itself with its cultural 
antipodes, Great Britain and France, it could 
hope to break down first the strong empire 
on its immediate border. As soon as Ger- 
many was defeated by the overweight of the 
threefold enemy, Eussia would stand much 
nearer to its western goal. It could foresee 
that after Germany's disaster it would be 
easy to subjugate France and Italy and fin- 
ally to free India and to wrestle with Eng- 
land. Germany is fighting to-day the battle 
of western civilization, and while the French 
bayonets and the English torpedoes are di- 
rected against its life, it fights this battle ulti- 
mately for France and England too. 

No thoughtful German underestimates the 
great moral powers latent in the Eussian 

95 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

people. The Slavic world is full of deep 
melancholy beauty, of devoted loyalty, of re- 
ligious democracy, of sincere idealism. The 
harshness of its autocratic regime and the 
widespread corruption of its upper classes 
are unimportant compared with the sterling 
virtues of the Russian people. Yet the Ger- 
mans feel strongly that a fundamental con- 
trast separates the German nation from the 
Russian. The German culture is active and 
productive; the Russian at its best passive 
and uncreative. The German soul is full of 
sunshine; there is something somber and 
gloomy and oppressive in the Russian soul. 
The German democracy is one which aims to 
raise even the lowest by better education and 
by the stimulation of his free energies to the 
level of the highest. The Russian democracy 
also aims to bring high and low to the same 
level, but by lowering the high and bringing 
them to the elementary state of simple hu- 
manity. The result is lack of education, com- 
plete submission to the church, a pathetic 
mixture of ignorance and superstition. 

I say this as one who has always enjoyed 
the company of Russians. I have had Rus- 
sian anarchists and Russian princes under my 

96 



THE RUSSIANS 

roof; I have been intimate with noted Rus- 
sian scholars; and when I was a student in 
Geneva, I spent many a night in radical Rus- 
sian circles with the tea from the samovar 
and the Russian cigarettes and the dreams of 
a better Russia. But all were dreams, full 
of sadness. The Russian life is one of cul- 
tural inefficiency, a life from which no true 
inner progress may be hoped. 

This inner deadness, this lack of productive 
energy, is in no way contradictory to the tre- 
mendous world-power of the Russian nation 
organized in the Czar's empire. A supersti- 
tion binds the people into a solid mass just as 
nrrnly as any liberal ideals bind free nations 
like Germany or America. The Russians 
have that force of blind brutality which easily 
makes the unthinking fanatic superior to the 
sensitive. As of the Germans it is true of the 
Russians that nation and Emperor are one. 
The Romanoffs do not force the people into 
world politics; they are only the instrument 
of the somber, silent masses whose orthodox 
belief pushes forward to subjugate the world. 
No Teuton to whom life means more than the 
comfort of his senses and to whom western 
civilization is more than mere entertainment 

97 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

of his intellect, can coolly deliberate whether 
the German or the Russian civilization is the 
better. He must feel with all the instincts of 
his mind that one is progress and the other 
regress, that one is cultural blessing and the 
other cultural depravity, that the one is life 
and the other internal death in spite of exter- 
nal colossal force and mystical beauty. As 
the Russian nation has decided to have war, 
Germans, stirred by these instincts, must 
fight along the whole battle-line from the 
Adriatic to the Baltic Sea for civilization 
against semi-barbarism. 

If Germany had been left alone, it would 
have gone into this struggle with the cer- 
tainty of success. Even if corruption had 
not undermined the Czar's land and even if 
the cruel oppression of the Finns and the 
Poles, of the Jews and of the Liberals, had 
not weakened the nation, the Germans would 
have felt sure that their intellectual mastery 
of the technical war problems and their edu- 
cation and thoroughness must bring victory. 
Germany pledged that it would not attack 
France, if France promised neutrality. But 
the craving for Alsace was too overwhelm- 
ing, and when France joined Russia, the 

98 



THE RUSSIANS 

chances for England were too tempting ; and 
now Germany, weakened and exhausted by 
enemies at its back, must fight against 
Russia. 

If Germany had been left alone in the 
struggle, Russia's move would have been 
checked; the German victory would have 
strengthened Austria's influence on the 
Balkan; the Pan-Slavic dreams would re- 
main dreams ; western Europe would keep its 
hold on the southeast down to Constanti- 
nople. Now there must be a miracle. Ger- 
many must win against the world, if this 
balance of eastern and western powers is to 
be maintained. But what will occur if in- 
stead of it the natural expectation of 
America becomes truth; if the tremendous 
massing of six nations with their auxiliaries 
from Asia and Africa brings disaster to 
Germany? 

The writers of the day are not shy in dis- 
cussing the probable outcome of the Kaiser's 
defeat. Without reserve, their imagination 
pictures how he will be tarred and feathered 
and how the whole nation will be made to 
bleed until it is back to its shadowy existence 
of a hundred years ago — a people which 

99 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

writes poems and songs and discusses phil- 
osophical theories — but which has no voice in 
the councils of the real world. Of course, 
Austria will not fare otherwise: it will also 
be dismembered; the Slavic states of Aus- 
tria will join the Balkan kingdoms in a great 
Slavic union under the Czar. At the same 
time, France and England will carry their 
booty home and all Europe with the excep- 
tion of the two mourners will live happy ever 
after. 

But is not such a programme for the fu- 
ture, after all, very shortsighted 1 It may tell 
the story of the evening of our short life, but 
after it, history brings a to-morrow and a 
day after to-morrow. Our vision ought to 
reach further. The game on the chessboard 
of the world will not stop because one piece 
is lost; what are the next moves and who 
will finally win? Yet is it really difficult to 
foresee the further development? 

As soon as Russia has the control of the 
whole Balkan, and Germany and Austria are 
torn in pieces, no other country of Europe 
can resist Russia's weight. France and Italy 
as well as the northern states must become 
dependencies of the onmoving giant, and 
100 



THE RUSSIANS 

finally Russia will strike against England, 
the mistress of the sea. But this stroke will 
be well prepared. Great Britain cannot hold 
India after Russia has gained this new 
strength; India is ripe to fall. When India 
is cut off, Canada, Australia, South Africa 
must follow. England will stand alone and 
weakened from the fight with her rebellious 
colonies. Then the Russian bear will be far 
stronger than the English lion. In the mean- 
time Japan and China and India will begin 
their fight for the control of the Pacific. The 
Russian-German War of to-day will be the 
first decisive step. Japan has already won 
over England ; by its clever move of joining 
England against Germany it has shown to 
the world that the eastern waters are under 
Japanese supremacy. It will strive not only 
for Kiao-Chou in China but for German col- 
onies in the Pacific in order to have foot- 
holds for the fight for the Philippines. 
Chinese-Japanese and Hindu infiltration of 
Central and South America is the next step. 
In such a way Russia will press on Eng- 
land; Japan, China and India on the Pacifio 
coast of America. But in the meantime Eng- 
land and America will themselves have be- 
101 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

come rivals which weaken each other. Eng- 
land will not tolerate the growth of an 
American merchant marine; jealousies will 
lead to hostilities and when these struggles 
on the Atlantic have reduced the resisting 
power of the peoples about the western ocean 
the time will have come when Russia can win 
over England and the united orientals over 
America. The final outcome will be the tri- 
umph of Asia and of Asia only. Geograph- 
ical names must not deceive us. We count 
Russia into Europe because the Ural is a 
boundary line on the map. But culturally 
Russia is Asia, and since the railway binds 
Moscow and Pekin, the Ural line has become 
still more insignificant. The triumph of 
Russia over the Atlantic and of Japan, China 
and India over the Pacific means the com- 
plete control of Asia over the globe, and the 
only real antipodes, the western European- 
American civilization will then be subju- 
gated. 

What does this contrast of the antipodes 
mean? It is a contrast between feeling and 
thought; it is a world conflict between mys- 
tical devotion and efficiency, between the in- 
stinctive life and the life of technical civiliza- 
102 



THE RUSSIANS 

tion, between nature and culture, between 
the heart and the brain. Asiatic longing 
from Buddha to Tolstoi means a suppression 
of the human demands, a somber, dreamy life 
without desires; western striving from the 
Greeks to the Americans is to awake ever 
new demands and to satisfy them by cease- 
less effort of thought and action. From the 
standpoint of western culture the Asiatic 
world must therefore appear anti-cultural, 
superstitious, semi-barbaric. From the 
Asiatic standpoint the western world is un- 
natural, artificial, irreligious, worthless. 
Every great religion came from Asia. 

If Russia wins to-day and Germany is 
broken down, Asia must win sooner or later, 
and if Asia wins, the achievements of the 
western world will be wiped from the earth 
more sweepingly than the civilization of old 
Assyria. The anti-Asiatic work will and 
must appear sinful and treacherous; it will 
be obliterated from the globe and the dark- 
ness of old will reign again. It may be that 
two thousand years hence an Asiatic priest 
will tell the faithful peasants the true story 
of the world history as follows : 

In the beginning Asia was the human 
103 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

world, and the world was full of devotion and 
humility. Swarms moved westward into the 
peninsula of Asia called Europe and moved 
eastward into the great American islands 
where they lived a natural life as Indians. 
But in little Europe a rebellion started. It 
was begun in Greece by a man called Soc- 
rates and his followers, Plato and Aristotle. 
They propagated the sinful belief that man 
can rely on his own thought. The new creed 
spread like an infectious disease. They 
taught how to arrange the whole human life 
by reasoning, and the false doctrine made 
progress because it seemed to them that by 
such reasoning they could master nature, 
which God has given. For a thousand years 
there came a check: reason was suppressed 
once more by religious belief. But after that 
the Greek revolt spread suddenly over all 
Europe west of Russia and was carried by 
the Europeans over to America where the 
Indians with their natural life were subju- 
gated by the onrush of the European 
thought-people. 

The very worst was the tribe of the Ger- 
mans. They invented the printing press, 
which more than anything aided the thought- 
104 



THE RUSSIANS 

rebellion. Afterward they had bold revolu- 
tionists, Luther and Kant and many others, 
who boasted their so-called science and 
scholarship and inventions of a thousand 
kinds, all aiming to undo the natural life of 
man and his salvation by delivery from his 
desires. France, England, America, were 
not better. They were fanatically worship- 
ing education and knowledge and suppress- 
ing the truth of the heart. In a sad period 
the sinful spirit made inroads even into 
sacred Asia. Especially the Japanese were 
for a while quite infected by this false re- 
ligion of intelligence and thought with its 
worthless technique. 

But the evil consequences had to come. 
With the steady increase of desires which 
they artificially fostered, they made life 
more difficult and began to reduce the fam- 
ily, while our Asiatic population grew with- 
out limit. Our gigantic numbers had to win 
over the few hundred millions of the thought- 
rebels. Moreover their complicated, unnat- 
ural life with railways and cables and steam- 
ers and factories brought them into endless 
conflicts which awoke jealousies, and their 
technique thus served their mutual destruc- 
105 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

tion. Above all, their rivalry made them 
interfere with one another, at the time when 
Asia finally took steps to suppress that un- 
holy rebellion. Two thousand years ago 
Eussia undertook to punish the chief prov- 
ince of the thought-district, its small neigh- 
bor Germany. The Germans might have re- 
sisted successfully, as they had skill and 
courage. But fortunately the English and 
French were very shortsighted and struck 
Russia's enemy in the back. Japan, of 
course, helped too, and finally India; and so 
Germany was annihilated. After that the 
holy work of Asia was divided: the good 
Eussian Cossacks destroyed the last of the 
thought-people in Europe, and the Japanese, 
Chinese and Hindus swept over America. It 
took hardly more than a thousand years. 
When the victory was complete, all libraries 
were burned, the schools destroyed and the 
use of all those Godless inventions forbid- 
den. Now all people on earth have been for 
a long time dependent on Asia. It is again 
as it was in the beginning five thousand 
years ago, and the reckless thought-rebellion 
is stamped out for all time and almost for- 
gotten. Men must not think, but feel. Let 
106 



THE RUSSIANS 

us be grateful that at the decisive hour of 
this holy world war against the worshipers 
of thought, France and England helped us 
Asiatics. 



vni 

THE GERMAN POLICY 

Whose policy is responsible for this titanic 
world calamity? The less reliable news we 
have as to the actnal happenings, the more 
America discusses the underlying causes. 
But the overwhelming majority of the peo- 
ple seems to have made a decision: Ger- 
many is the wilful aggressor ; five European 
nations were Germany's innocent victims. 
But while this is accepted as an axiom it is 
quite evident that the American people are 
ready to make a subtle point. The culprit 
Germany must be discriminated from the 
harmless German people; the masses are 
peaceful, industrious, civilized, honest, pro- 
gressive. They did not want the war; they 
were whipped into it by the reckless will of 
the autocratic emperor. Before the tribunal 
of the new world William II alone stands 
accused and convicted. 

To use the language of a divine, the Eev- 
108 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

erend C. H. Parkhurst contributes to-day to 
the New York Times a letter whicli the edi- 
tors class among "the most interesting. ' ' 
He says: "When a mad dog runs amuck, 
the policeman shoots him on the spot — not 
by way of revenge, but as a humanitarian 
contribution to the security of the public. 
Now has a more rabid creature than the Em- 
peror William ever run amuck through the 
peaceful and prosperous domain of Europe! 
The policeman makes no argument with the 
dog and enters into no compromise with him, 
but deals with him in exclusive regard to the 
requirements of society and simply blots him 
out as a public menace. It may not be neces- 
sary to strangle Germany, but her claws 
should be clipped and her teeth filed and 
enough of her fortifications dismantled to 
render her harmless and as heavy a war in- 
demnity imposed as will not drive her to ab- 
solute penury. ' ' 

Still more typical than this clerical out- 
break is the milder form by a layman con- 
tributor who writes from Boston to his edi- 
tor. He says: "The average American is 
extremely certain that there need not have 
been any war. He wanted none and he is 
109 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

apt to be pretty stern with the man whom 
he finds responsible. That man is the Em- 
peror of Germany. The average American 
is convinced that the whole question could 
have been choked at birth had the Kaiser 
brought proper pressure upon Austria-Hun- 
gary at the right time. This he refused to 
do even when the course was urged upon him 
by Great Britain, and he stands to-day, justly 
or unjustly, solely responsible, in American 
public opinion, for the war. Hence the al- 
most universal hope in America that Ger- 
many will be thoroughly chastized for her 
ruler 's monstrous crime against the peace of 
the world.' ' 

This is indeed exactly the mood of the 
man on the street, and he does not feel the 
blood of shame rushing to his cheeks because 
he does not stop to think for a moment what 
it means that the Emperor "stands to-day, 
justly or unjustly, solely responsible in 
American public opinion." Justly or un- 
justly ! If in a murder case in court the dis- 
trict attorney were to point his finger at any 
tramp, declaring that this man must be pun- 
ished for the crime, justly or unjustly, an 
outburst of indignation would sweep over the 
110 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

country. But if the deed brings suffering to 
hundreds of millions and drenches the world 
in blood, "the average American ,, is wel- 
come to condemn the Emperor for the gigan- 
tic act without caring whether the judgment 
is just or unjust. Can there really still be 
any doubt that the Kaiser was not respon- 
sible for this European war? Who threw 
the spark into the powder magazine? But 
after all that is not the decisive question. 
It ought to be : who heaped up so much pow- 
der on such a dangerous spot that a spark 
could explode a world? But most impor- 
tant: where did the powder come from? 
Must we not say: the spark was thrown by 
the Servian murderer of the Austrian arch- 
duke; the explosive was heaped up by King 
Edward VII, who created the mighty alliance 
of Great Britain, Eussia and France; but the 
powder was made from the political jealousy 
of Europe against ascending Germany. 

The distortions of the truth have been so 
absurd in recent days that I tried once more 
to show that this war is not a game on a 
European chessboard played by an over- 
ambitious monarch, but that great historic 
movements of the nations themselves have 
111 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

led to it. I published in the New York World 
a paper of which the following part covers 
this ground: 

The great events have drawn the attention away 
from the small immediate causes, but in the sphere 
of German emotion the shot which killed the heir 
to the Austrian throne resounded tremendously. 
The Archduke had been Emperor William's most 
intimate friend, but it was not this personal aspect 
of friendship which made the treacherous deed so 
momentous. When Austria recognized that this 
murder was the result of Servian political agita- 
tion, that this agitation aimed toward the disrup- 
tion of Austria, when Austria therefore had to 
demand Servians punishment, and Russia, in re- 
sponse, began her mobilization against both Austria 
and Germany, William II was forced to strike 
against Russia at once. He knew too well that 
if the declaration of war were delayed until Russia 
could complete its mobilization, all the strategical 
advantages of Germany would be lost. 

But this means that the true cause, after all, 
was not the assassination, but the political situa- 
tion by which the Czar could force a war on Ger- 
many, and could dare to mobilize against it and not 
to be afraid of any German ultimatum. This situ- 
ation was the master work of the late King of Eng- 
land. It was the time when England began to feel 
the rivalry of the Germans in the world markets. 
German technical science had become superior. He 

112 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

foresaw that the economic struggle would lead to 
irritation, and the irritation to hatred and the 
hatred to a political wrangle. With masterly states- 
manship he prepared for that event: the English 
fleet was- to be aided by the French and Russian 
armies. This leads us to the ultimate, causes. 
King Edward had a right to expect that the racial 
hatred of the Gallic and Slavic nations would al- 
ways be ready to crush the German Empire, when 
the chances for success seemed fair. His policy 
of encircling Germany, by uniting its foes, was 
thus founded upon France's desire for the lost 
provinces and upon Russia 's longing for the trium- 
phant predominance of the Slavic race. 

Had Emperor William anything to do with these 
causes? He was a child when Alsace-Lorraine was 
conquered, or rather, when Germany reconquered 
the old German land which it had lost to France 
two hundred years before. The French hatred 
was in no way a reaction on the Emperor's deeds. 
On the contrary, he left nothing undone to concili- 
ate the Gallic pride. And the antagonism between 
the German and the Slavic races was necessary 
from natural growth. Like two mighty trees side 
by side they hinder each other as they grow. The 
Teutons have had their day ; the Slavs want their 
day. That has always been the course of the 
world 's history ; what boots their emperor or czar ? 
This world condition of racial hatred once given, 
this encircling policy with its strategical chances 
once established, and this last chance conflict at 
113 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

the Servian frontiers once thrown into our time — 
what choice was left to William II and what blame 
can fall on him that he did that for which no 
alternative was open? 

To be sure, he did not wait until Petersburg 
declared war. If he had, he would have neglected 
his duty as leader of the German army. As soon 
as it was perfectly evident that the Czar had de- 
cided for war, it was the duty of Emperor William 
not to delay the fight until the slow mobilization 
on the one-tracked Russian railroads could be 
completed. He knew that he was prepared. But 
there is the rub. Was not this his great offense, 
that he had his army always ready? Did he not 
irritate the world by this constant preparation for 
war? Was this drilling and training not itself a 
provocation which had to lead to war? 

On the contrary, it was the one move by which 
peace continued through forty-three years after 
the foundation of the German Empire. If this 
tremendous machine had not been kept up, the 
Russian and the French guns would have opened 
fire much earlier. If this German readiness did not 
save peace this time, it was only because the Czar 
believed that the united forces were at last over- 
powering. The German army was no possible prov- 
ocation, and the Emperor's activity no possible 
first cause for the militarism of the neighbors be- 
cause even an elementary pupil of politics had to 
see that Germany did not desire expansion of its 
home land. The Emperor had difficulty enough 
114 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

with the Polish subjects on the Russian fron- 
tier and the Lorrainian subjects on the French 
frontier. To swallow more such indigestible ele- 
ments of population was against Germany's inter- 
ests and desires. 

The world, therefore, could be sure that Ger- 
many never would make use of its fighting machine 
except to defend itself against its ill-disposed neigh- 
bors. Even if William II had been craving the 
glory of the battlefield, the absurd uselessness of 
an aggressive war, the absence of any possible re- 
ward and the evident risk of great losses would 
have forced him to be pacific in every move. On 
every occasion he has shown by his deeds that the 
upbuilding of European peace was the one con- 
trolling programme of his reign. The White Book, 
just published in Berlin, proves that this remained 
his one desire, even at the hour when Slavs had 
murdered his friend and Austria felt threatened, 
and the Czar had actually begun rushing troops 
to the German frontier. 

How grotesque if Russian, French and English 
statesmen, who all have profited year by year 
from this peace policy of the Emperor, now join in 
the cry that at last the sham of peace has been torn 
from his face and his real war features have been 
unmasked. To-day he is the war lord indeed, whose 
every thought is fight for victory. But does this 
will to fight in the hour of battle give the lie to 
the longing for harmony in the days of peace and 
to the hope that war never would come? Does 
115 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

America not know that the American who holds 
the Nobel prize for peace, Theodore Roosevelt, is 
the fiercest in battle ? Is not this whole American 
nation united in its most earnest desire to live in 
peaceful harmony with the nations of the globe, 
and yet at every hour ready to strike with all the 
energies of its manhood if the Monroe Doctrine 
should be violated ? Would such a decision to fight 
really mean that the nation was deceiving the 
world with its desire to live peacefully? 

This double nature pervades the whole German 
nation exactly as it does the American. It is there- 
fore entirely misleading to construct a contrast be- 
tween the German people, which seeks peace and 
culture and art and science, and the imperial gov- 
ernment which rattles the saber. The whole Ger- 
man people knows that it owes to no one more than 
to the Emperor its wonderful progress in the arts 
of peace; and the hour of danger has shown that 
there is no dissension from the Emperor's will to 
war when need be. This does not mean that every 
citizen has a taste for the life of the barracks. War 
is abhorrent to many, but there is no fundamental 
disagreement as to Germany 's life necessities. Even 
the Socialistic opposition is only a luxury for peace- 
ful hours of discussion. Emperor and nation are 
one in the knowledge that Germany is surrounded 
by peoples whose racial hatred would crush Ger- 
many to the ground if it could not fight at an in- 
stant's notice. 

Whether this fight had any promise of success 

116 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

when six nations stood against two could not be 
the question, as the Emperor had no choice. If he 
had not struck, the defeat was certain. He did 
strike, as at least a hope existed that once more 
the miracle might occur which came to his ancestor, 
Frederick the Great, who also went against an un- 
holy alliance, also was outnumbered by armies four 
times larger than his, and who won. 

The papers with more academic back- 
ground have their own variation of the ter- 
rible conflict between Kaiser and nation. 
They do not think so much of the poor farm- 
ers and workingmen with whom the sensa- 
tional papers are concerned, but they harp 
upon the sad fate of those who work for art 
and science and ideal culture. The regi- 
ments of the willful Kaiser trample down 
the wonderful harvests of Germany's higher 
life. I printed the following letter in the 
New York Evening Post: 

To the Editor of the Evening Post: 

Sir : — Your much reprinted editorial called ' ' The 
Real Crime Against Germany " is the most elo- 
quent expression of the American upper-class opin- 
ion of the second week of war. In the first week 
the rush was simply straight against Germany. 
Then came the reaction ; everybody felt the absurd- 
117 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

ity, and a subtle discrimination began. The indig- 
nation is now not against Germany, the highly 
civilized nation with its idealistic citizens, but 
against Germany, the imperial militaristic state. 
The Germany of the Emperor must be crushed in 
order to liberate the better Germany of "Fichte, 
Kant and Hegel. ,, 

As Fichte and Kant and Hegel can no longer 
express their views on the question, and as I am 
the only living man you draw into the dispute, I 
beg permission to restate the issue as I see it. You 
say: "Is it any wonder that true friends of Ger- 
many cry out against all this from the depths of 
their affection for it — that they protest against the 
sophisms of a Munsterberg and of all those who 
would suddenly see in this horrible slaughter of 
the true Germany a new crusade against the 
heathen t" 

I cannot speak for "all those,' ' but for my own 
part I can say with certainty that I never spoke 
of anything like a crusade against the heathen, 
because a crusade suggests an attack, while the only 
meaning of all my utterances was that this war 
of Germany is a war of defense. The Slavic attack 
which was signalized by the Russian mobilization 
threatened to become crushing inasmuch as Russia 
was able to rely on the willingness of France to 
take revenge. As soon as it was evident that both 
felt ready to risk the long-delayed blow against 
Germany, it was the duty of the Emperor to save 
the country from certain defeat by making the 
118 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

first movement quickly and by declaring war be- 
fore the slow-moving Russian troops were assem- 
bled. 

Now it is thinkable that the Emperor was mis- 
taken in believing that Russia really meant war this 
time and not only bluff. But it is certain that this 
perhaps mistaken judgment was shared by the over- 
whelming majority of the nation. In the last few 
days, as travelers have returned, and letters and 
papers have come in, we know more than a week 
ago. In every home and wherever two Germans 
met, lived the one conviction: Russia wants war; 
France is ready, too ; if Germany waits some weeks 
more, its best chance will be lost ; the quick declara- 
tion of war is unavoidable, if the nation is not to 
be thrown to the ground. The fiction that the true 
nation wanted peace and the government war is a 
bold construction which is utterly refuted by the 
evident facts. The cultured people and the Em- 
peror alike wanted and worked for peace, as long 
as there seemed any hope. But all of them de- 
manded war when they felt convinced that it was 
the only possible protection against a Slavic on- 
rush. 

This inner unity of people and imperial govern- 
ment in matters of militarism was not confined to 
this hour of danger after the murder of the Aus- 
trian Archduke, but it has been the backbone of 
German politics for the last forty years. Those 
men who have achieved the marvelous progress of 
German civilization have done it in the conviction 
119 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

that the military spirit is a splendid training for 
cultural efficiency and that anyhow Germany, in its 
geographical position between rivals, has no other 
way open but to prepare for fight. The German 
university professors, whom you praise, have al- 
ways been the most enthusiastic defenders of the 
system. 

You hear nowhere in Germany more belittling of 
the peace and disarmament movements than among 
the university professors. And are they really dis- 
loyal to Fichte and Kant and the rest? Was the 
need of Germany's armor ever more passionately 
proclaimed than in Fichte 's ' ' Orations to the Ger- 
man Nation?" If Germany had been made a re- 
public twenty years ago, and the lawyers and cap- 
tains of industry, the farmers and the workingmen, 
and, as would be probable, the professors, had the 
say, not one soldier and not one cannon less would 
stand to-day at the French and the Russian border. 
Yes: it is a fact that repeatedly in the Emperor's 
reign of twenty-five years the people would have 
pushed toward war, if the government had not kept 
a restraining influence. It may be said even of 
the whole of Europe that the governments have 
been cooler and more pacific than the peoples. 

The historic state forms have hardty any influ- 
ence on this war spirit. Has America forgotten 
how quickly the troops began firing in Vera Cruz, 
and how suddenly a large part of the people wanted 
to fight until the whole of Mexico was conquered? 
And yet the crime at Tampico was hardly the assas- 
120 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

sination at Serajevo. No : the fighting spirit is the 
same the world over under presidents as under em- 
perors. 

But what can letters to the editor achieve 
against the stubborn American indifference 
concerning German political matters? Men 
who are familiar with German literature and 
art and science express their sincere belief 
that Germany has no constitution or that the 
German Emperor can declare war on his 
own responsibility or that the Reichstag is 
not elected by universal, equal manhood suf- 
frage and so on. Indeed, it is perfectly evi- 
dent that not a small part of the present-day 
articles which attack the Emperor would fall 
asunder if the statements on w T hich they are 
based were simply corrected by anyone who 
has clear knowledge of the fundamental po- 
litical facts. 

But even where the facts are not of the 
kind which the school teacher ought to have 
supplied, would not straight thinking be 
enough to eliminate the suspicions'? Day by 
day we must read that Austria's ultimatum 
to Servia with the intention to force a war 
with the world was a sinister scheme of the 
121 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

German Emperor who had carefully pre- 
pared and timed it when Russia had not 
completed its new railway systems and when 
England was suffering from inner disorders. 
Can this absurdity really gain credence by 
its endless repetition? Can anyone really 
fancy that the Emperor would have lingered 
in Norwegian waters, far from home, if he 
had foreseen what the next few days were 
to bring? Would he not have given a hint 
to the merchant marine which was swarm- 
ing over the oceans of the globe and which 
with its billion dollars' value became the 
easy prey of the English fleet? Can anyone 
really think that America figures so little in 
the Emperor's mind that he would not even 
keep his Washington ambassador at his post 
when he was to stir up a world conflict? 
The ambassador had left America only a 
few weeks before, and I remember how he 
told me at the end of June that he could go 
on his vacation in Bavaria with the comfort- 
able feeling that Mexico was settled and 
that not the slightest cloud was on the hori- 
zon. The Kaiser was as unaware of the rapid 
developments in Petersburg as the whole 
German nation. But when the great Russian 
122 



THE GERMAN POLICY 

turn was made, the nation was as quickly pre- 
pared for the decisive struggle as the Em- 
peror. There was not a day's, not an hour's, 
not a heartbeat's time in which this perfect 
unity of people and monarch was broken. 



IX 

THE KAISER 

At the declaration of war there was not a 
day's, not an hour's, not a heartbeat's time 
in which the perfect unity of people and mon- 
arch was broken — so I wrote yesterday. How 
could it be otherwise after a reign of twenty- 
five years in which the German nation felt 
the Emperor's vigorous personality — a 
true embodiment of its aspirations and im- 
pulses? It was a fair symptom of the ex- 
treme freedom in Germany that small dis- 
sensions between the monarch and various 
groups of the people had sometimes been 
aired in the comic papers, in the serious 
press, in the parliament, with noise and 
energy. Outsiders may have been deceived 
by it. In every deeper impulse the harmony 
between Emperor and nation has always been 
sincere, and has become the more perfect as 
his personality matured, his cultural inter- 
ests widened, his tolerance, even for the So- 
124 



THE KAISER 

cialists, broadened, his character mellowed. 

The nation realized that some of the most 
characteristic forces of Germany's new, suc- 
cessful life had their spring in the personal 
talent and intelligence, in the character and 
conviction of the leader. His was the inter- 
est for the industrial developments and the 
technical education; his was the enthusiasm 
for the great merchant marine; his was the 
support for sport and bodily training of the 
youth ; his was the persistent w T ork for social 
reform, for labor legislation, for the protec- 
tion of the young and the weak and the poor ; 
his the effort for international cultural ex- 
change w T ith the leading nations on earth. 

When the young monarch ascended the 
throne and the great Bismarckian period 
came to an end there w T as a hush throughout 
the country and nobody knew whether the 
heir would live up to the great inheritance 
and whether the industrious empire would 
really entrust itself to the untested, self- 
willed, youthful prince. But when last year 
under every German roof the twenty-fifth an- 
niversary of his reign was celebrated, a wave 
of gratitude swept over the land which came 
from the depths of the heart. The whole 
125 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

people felt that the dissensions and frictions 
between the monarch and the nation had been 
insignificant episodes, as the pulse-beat of 
friendship is sometimes intermittent in the 
most cordial relation. But fundamentally the 
country saw in William II its good spirit. 
In joyful and in serious hours all love and 
pride and hope and trust turned to his unique 
personality. 

No side of German life was neglected or 
suppressed by him. He devoted himself to 
the army and the government; and yet the 
four volumes of his speeches deal far more 
with science and literature, with education 
and art and social reform than with mere 
military or political questions. He was sur- 
rounded by the highest nobility; and yet he 
loved to draw captains of industry or schol- 
ars or artists into his intimate circle. And 
whoever came in contact with him felt that 
he would have admired this universality of 
interests and this intensity of spirit if he 
had met it in academic halls instead of in an 
imperial palace. Everyone must speak for 
himself. I can say this: my scientific in- 
terest has turned in recent years toward the 
application of experimental psychology to 
126 



THE KAISER 

the practical needs of civilization. I have 
had ample opportunity to speak about these 
questions to many a scholar and many a lay- 
man in the new world and in the old. When 
I was last at the Emperor's palace in Pots- 
dam he discussed with me these problems at 
length. He was especially interested in the 
ways in which psychology could be useful 
for vocational guidance and for the selection 
of industrial workers, and secondarily in its 
application to education, law and medicine. 
The questions which he asked and the criti- 
cisms which he expressed showed a more 
thorough grasp of the essentials and a more 
helpful insight into the new science than any 
which I have heard from scholarly or un- 
scholarly men. Needless to say that the same 
earnestness of grasp, but aided by a wealth 
of information, showed itself when the same 
night's conversation went over to new move- 
ments in America and to the Panama Canal. 
America has always had a most favored place 
in the compass of his personal interests and 
with deepest sympathy he always followed 
the inner tendencies of the American nation. 
To draw a line between the desires of the 
Emperor and the interests of the people is 
127 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

thus entirely fantastic. To say that the 
Kaiser is militaristic and the people anti-mil- 
itaristic, that the nation is longing for cul- 
ture and the monarch is forcing them away 
from it, is contradicted by every breath of 
German life. Yet may there not be an ele- 
ment of truth in the feeling that the German 
life of recent time is threatened by a con- 
trast and by an inner rivalry of interests! 
It is so. The grotesque misunderstanding is 
only to fancy that the division line lies be- 
tween the Emperor and the nation ; the divi- 
sion line is drawn in the midst of every per- 
sonality, the highest and the humblest alike. 
There is a certain dualism in the soul of 
every German to-day. It is the contrast be- 
tween the ideal values and the earthly power 
and success, the contrast between cultural un- 
folding and practical efficiency, between the 
legacies of Goethe and of Bismarck. Ger- 
many is still, as it was of old, a people of 
poets and thinkers ; and yet the time is past 
when it could not be anything else because 
it was exhausted by the devastations of the 
Thirty Years' War. The new united Ger- 
many had again reached by its own efforts 
the wealth and the strength of the Germany 
128 



THE KAISER 

of the Eenaissance. The days of power and 
of luxury came back, the glories and the joys 
of success and might stirred the nation to 
greater and greater achievements: not Wei- 
mar but Berlin became the true capital. 

The weakness and one-sidedness of the 
poet and thinker period was overcome, but 
the faults of the new virtues crept in with 
them. An empty ostentation, frivolity and 
arrogance, a sensual joy of life and devotion 
to external success pushed themselves into 
the home life and into the state life. The 
modern world suffers everywhere from these 
antagonistic feelings, but no people more 
than the Germans. Their old traditions of a 
life devoted to idealistic culture conflict too 
strongly with the life yearning for powerful 
external civilization. Berlin became more 
and more like old Borne in the imperial time, 
while the German soul made its pilgrimage 
longingly to the Greece of Plato. That is the 
conflict which really divides the nation. 
There will be not a few who will feel that it 
is a blessing for Germany if a great war 
shakes once more the national conscience. 
There was too much dancing, too much love 
of enjoyment; the time of fighting and of 
129 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

hardship may bring forth a greater Germany. 
There was too much luxury and frivolity; 
the earnestness of a strenuous fight, the 
suffering and the prayers will bring back a 
purer Germany. They would feel that a de- 
feat of Germany would ruin everything, but 
that Germany blessed by victorious struggles 
would come out riper and better prepared to 
unite the ideal demands of the German im- 
mortal soul with the work of modern civil- 
ization. 

One thing, however, is certain, even if the 
most cruel fate were to befall the German 
nation and the Cossacks should swarm 
through the streets of Berlin and the envy 
and fury of Russia's allies should make the 
most of the Russian victory and should 
trample on the bleeding nation: the people 
would never separate themselves from the 
Kaiser. The widespread ignorance of the 
true German motives and feelings is nowhere 
so evident as in the every-day discussions of 
this possibility. The average American fan- 
cies that the poor German people are held 
in the grip of the powerful Emperor and his 
army and that at the first moment when a 
national disaster gave them a chance to 
130 



THE KAISER 

throw off the yoke, they would enthusiasti- 
cally declare a republic. Sincere admirers 
of the German people and their cultural 
achievements are fully convinced that this 
would be the inevitable outcome. The bulk 
of the American nation anticipates this as 
the natural and most desirable result of Ger- 
man defeat. For not a few this is even the 
secret spring of the sympathy with the ter- 
rific alliance of six nations against two. 
However this unfairness may be abhorrent 
to their sense of justice, they feel that after 
all at least one good thing can be hoped for : 
the militarism of monarchies, the humbug of 
royalties of divine right will be swept away 
from Central Europe, and the area of repub- 
licanism will be expanded to the banks of the 
Vistula. 

If they knew Europe better they would feel 
that those to whom republicanism is the be- 
ginning and end of all political righteousness 
ought rather to hope for the victory of the 
German arms. If France is victorious, the 
chance is much greater that Germany will 
keep its monarchy, but that France will 
throw off its ill-fitting republican costume. 
I was in Paris at the Boulanger time. Paris 
131 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

is clamoring to make a victorious war hero 
king. But the main point is that Germany, 
if it does not lose itself, will remain loyal to 
its traditional monarchical state form. 

Most Americans simply cannot think them- 
selves into the mind of another nation. Just 
as they are seldom able really to master a 
foreign language and as even those who 
travel in Europe usually rely on their na- 
tive tongue, they cannot understand the lan- 
guage of foreign political thought and fancy 
that everybody must have a desire to speak 
the American idiom. The man I meet in the 
club tells me spontaneously how warmly he 
sympathizes with me in any misfortune of 
Germany and how wonderful Germany's 
progress has been, but with the same sin- 
cerity he adds that he simply cannot under- 
stand how such an enlightened people can 
stand the claptrap of a monarchy, if it is to 
mean more than a mere social decoration, as 
it appears to him in the case of England. 

I know I cannot convince that man in the 
club that every healthy-minded German con- 
siders the imperial government the ideal state 
form for his fatherland and would regard a 
change to the republican state form as a 
132 



THE KAISER 

great step backward which would be welcome 
to none but to cosmopolitan Socialists. The 
German who believes in the historic meaning 
and value of national units as against color- 
less cosmopolitanism would see in the crea- 
tion of a German republic a falling back to 
the rationalizing theory of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. He would feel it as a destruction of 
Germany's historic continuity. Does that 
mean that he considers the monarchical state 
form as a better one than the republican? 
Certainly not. He would consider such a 
question as to the best state form as unfit 
and unworthy of anyone who understands the 
spirit of history. It would be as unwise as 
the question whether man or woman is the 
better human form when it is clear that na- 
ture needs both and performs in both neces- 
sary purposes. 

America would prostitute itself if it were 
to make its greatest and strongest man a 
king, just as Germany would lower itself if it 
were to elect its best man as president. The 
German is not unaware of the splendid moral 
energies living in the thought of a true re- 
publican democracy. He knows quite well 
that the glaring defects of democratic rule, 
133 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

the often inefficient civil service, the over- 
weight of moneyed interests and many simi- 
lar faults are after all superficial and insig- 
nificant compared with the tremendous value 
which lies in the participation and power of 
every individual citizen. This complete distri- 
bution of responsibility, making everything 
which the state is to do ultimately dependent 
upon the will of every voter, is a civic 
achievement which cannot be bought too 
dearly and which inspires the nation to won- 
derful feats. But behind this stands and 
must stand a certain view of the state. The 
state must be taken as an organization which 
exists in the interest of the individuals. This 
is indeed the central belief of Anglo-Saxon 
civilization. It harmonizes completely with 
the individualistic philosophy in every other 
field. What else is the purpose of science and 
knowledge, of art and literature, of culture 
and progress, but to aid and to strengthen 
the individuals, to make life comfortable and 
pleasant and efficient for as many persons as 
possible? The happiness of individuals is the 
last goal for the Anglo-Saxon. 

But the philosophy of life which stands be- 
hind the German nation has always been en- 
134 



THE KAISER 

tirely different. In the German view the 
state is not for the individuals, but the in- 
dividuals for the state. The ideal state unit 
which has existence only in the belief of the 
individuals is felt as higher and more impor- 
tant than those chance personalities which 
enter into it. In the same way truth and 
beauty, law and morality, progress and re- 
ligion are valuable in themselves and not only 
means to bring comfort and happiness to in- 
dividual persons. It is man's task to serve 
these ideals. To fill one's life with the serv- 
ice of science and art, of culture and state, 
and when need be to spend one 's life for them 
is an eternal value. The German creed is 
that not the enjoyment of happiness, but the 
fulfillment of duties is the real meaning of 
human existence. Life is worth while only 
if we serve ideas and if we are ready to sac- 
rifice everything for them. 

If this is the moral background, the power 
of the state must be symbolized in a person- 
ality which is entirely independent from the 
struggle of the individuals as such. A presi- 
dent is the product of parties; his real 
strength lies in the fact that the will of a ma- 
jority has selected him and has empowered 
135 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

him. The whole meaning of a true king lies 
in the fact that his strength is not the result 
of the struggling wills of individuals. He 
symbolizes the state as a unit and not as a 
mere sum of individual persons. 

Of course, he is a man with all the limita- 
tions of an erring man, just as our flag is, of 
course, a piece of cloth. But the flag is more 
than a piece of cloth and in that sense the 
king is more than a man; and only in that 
sense the German welcomes even the sym- 
bolic language which calls the power of the 
king one of divine grace, just as the marriage 
tie is taken as divine. The Germans could 
not substitute a republic for the monarchy 
without throwing away this whole system of 
ideas about the meaning of life and the state 
and the world. They have not chosen their 
attitude toward man and God by votes in 
committees; it has grown with them in two 
thousand years of history, and has grown out 
of their traditions as necessarily as the oppo- 
site ideas of state and individual have re- 
sulted from the cooperation of the American 
colonies. Nations cannot exchange the stories 
of their lives ; Germany cannot cut itself loose 
from two thousand years so gloriously rich 
136 



THE KAISER 

with the most costly treasures of culture. 
Germany's future depends upon its loyalty 
to the idealism of its great past. 

Have those who speculate on the German 
republic ever considered that this type of 
monarchical feelings with its tremendous 
and incomparable idealistic value holds not 
only an Emperor at the top of the empire, 
but kings and grand dukes in every German 
state? Are Bavarians and Saxons and 
Wiirtenbergians too coolly to throw their 
old reigning dynasties, in which their state 
history is symbolized, overboard in order to 
hold primaries and party committees to elect 
some lawyer politicians as substitutes? Those 
who know the elements of history would se- 
riously doubt whether such Broadway advice 
would find sympathizers in Munich or Dres- 
den or Stuttgart. Germany may be crippled 
by the brutal, overwhelming force of the six 
nations which have attacked it in the midst 
of its peaceful life, but only if it became dis- 
loyal to its history and its idealistic belief 
would it be really defeated. Those who know 
the spirit of the German nation do not fear 
such a moral disaster. Its fortresses may 
fall, but its faith in the Kaiser will stand. 
137 



THE SILENT VOICES 

We know where the newspapers stand, but 
where does the crowd stand and the quiet 
masses from the American homes ? The sur- 
face appearance is that the papers and the 
nation are one in this war and that the large 
reading public enjoys these savage editorial 
policies which put all blame on Germany 
while its news and views are so largely 
cut off from America. Yet may not the 
papers be deceiving themselves? In the first 
moment when the one-sided, colored news of 
German meanness and brutality and of Rus- 
sian and French and English and Belgian 
honor and glory was cabled, the well-known 
tendency of the Americans to follow the 
crowd made them swarm into the anti-Ger- 
man camp. It was a nation-wide auto-sug- 
gestion. The victory of the six over the 
two seemed certain, and this first unthinking 
rush to the successful gave the cue to the 
138 



THE SILENT VOICES 

editors and they outdid themselves in cater- 
ing to the apparent mass instinct. 

With some of the best papers the reaction 
has set in. During the last week the tone has 
markedly changed. Others, no doubt, will 
follow. Yet the total impression in the coun- 
try's press is still that of pronounced hos- 
tility to Germany, and certainly not that of 
neutrality. The theory that the German Em- 
peror wanted the war, that the Germans were 
the aggressors, and that it would be a bless- 
ing for mankind if the Germans were beaten 
and severely punished is still the great, har- 
monious background of the country's litera- 
ture for the day. But symptoms indicate that 
the reaction in the decent public has gone 
much faster and further. The wholesome 
family circle begins to feel pretty sure that 
an appalling injustice, unworthy of the great 
American nation, has been done. It has 
dawned on them that this war has been forced 
on Germany, that it is fundamentally a war 
of Eussian brutality against German civiliza- 
tion, and that it is a misfortune for the world 
that revengeful France and envious England 
have joined Russia to throw down the Ger- 
man nation by force of a larger number. 
139 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

The coming of this change in the public 
opinion is as yet little felt on the outside. 
The newspapers can easily select the letters 
which they print, can open their columns to 
everyone who is under the suggestive in- 
fluence of the one-sided cables or who hon- 
estly believes that whatever England says 
must be right. They can keep out of print 
the letters from those Anglo-American citi- 
zens who know better and take the German 
side. If the German-born writers protest 
against unfairness, their letters are, of 
course, gladly admitted; they are treated as 
outsiders. They are the poor fellows on 
whom a generous newspaper may have pity 
because their fatherland is crushed and no- 
body can be surprised that they beg grace in 
the hour of humiliation. They are discounted 
beforehand. Those who arrived here with the 
Imperator cannot help feeling friendly to 
Germany, but when those whose ancestors 
arrived with the Mayflower are indignant 
with this press campaign against Berlin, they 
are carefully silenced. Even if the coun- 
try's leading authority on international law, 
dean of Columbia University for many years, 
writes a fervent appeal to the American na- 
140 



THE SILENT VOICES 

tion to be just to the Emperor and to see the 
true aggressors, he finds difficulty in publish- 
ing his article. 

The public press is thus like a curved mir- 
ror which distorts and alters the perspec- 
tive. I feel so because my private correspon- 
dence suggests a very different impression. 
I do not speak of those letters which I have 
received from friends or colleagues, from 
politicians and statesmen, men with whom I 
am personally acquainted. During the last 
four weeks the larger part of my mail has 
come, strange to say, from people whose 
names I have never heard. I have been sim- 
ply inundated here in my quiet country place 
with a flood of letters from all sorts of men" 
and women who would hardly think of elab- 
orating neatly prepared arguments for the 
public. But they do sit down and discharge 
their emotions in informal letters, warm or 
cool, polite or sharp, grammatical or other- 
wise. Every mail has brought piles of them. 
My time has not allowed me to read all of 
them and my good intention of dictating a 
word of answer to every letter simply had 
to be given up on account of its utter hope- 
lessness. Yet I have seen enough of their 
141 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

content to know that the masses whose voices 
are silent cannot be understood by simply 
reading the editorial columns and even the 
letter-box columns of our metropolitan news- 
papers. What the papers say would discour- 
age me utterly. My correspondence, if I may 
so call the letters which I do not answer, gives 
me the most encouraging and inspiring con- 
viction that the day of justice for Germany's 
cause before the tribunal of American pub- 
lic opinion is near. 

I do not quote the hundreds of letters from 
German writers. Their sympathy with my 
stand is almost a matter of course. Yet it is 
truly encouraging to see with what loyalty 
and sincere enthusiasm they profess their 
faith in the Emperor's course as one which 
the ill will of the neighbors has forced on him. 
This does not refer only to those who were 
born in the fatherland, but to their children 
and grandchildren, many of whom write to 
me in English. They tremble with holy 
wrath at the indignities which part of the 
press is heaping on the German race, and 
they fear that this recklessness with which 
the hatred against the Germans is stirred up 
may seriously disturb the peace between va- 
142 



THE SILENT VOICES 

rious racial elements in this country. The 
far more important and characteristic ex- 
pressions are in those heaps of letters from 
persons who have no German blood in their 
veins. 

Certainly many of them are full of attacks 
and vituperations. I should deceive myself 
if I overlooked this feature of my collection. 
I may set down here some specimens. " Your 
article is pure, unadulterated piffle, and you 
know it. Germany, the bully of Europe, is 
doomed, and you know it, too." Or: "The 
American people believe that the Kaiser is 
an arrogant swashbuckler and his military 
officers are insolent warriors." Or: "Ger- 
many is a thug breaking into the household 
of nations in the night. I would be glad to 
see food furnished to those who are defend- 
ing their home lands. The German army I 
would see go hungry.' ' Or: "It was your 
blustering, swell-headed German Emperor 
who is to blame. He is a big bluff, but was 
called this time good and plenty. The Ger- 
man empire ends in sixty days." Or: "Let 
us hope the final result will be a disgraced 
Kaiser and a German republic. ' ' Or : " When 
the German armies have been beaten to a 
143 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

frazzle, as pray Heaven they will, and the 
Emperor has been sent to a hospital for 
paranoiacs, where he should have been con- 
signed before, then it will be a great oppor- 
tunity for the Social Democrats." 

This concern with the Emperor's paranoia 
is one of the most often repeated sympathetic 
motives. One dear soul writes directly: "I 
see symptoms of morbidity, suggestive of 
paranoia. I hope the symptoms are decep- 
tive, but I find them depressing.' ' Another, 
a lawyer who has a reputation to lose, ten- 
derly goes into still more detail. "I really 
fear that William is the victim of the two 
distinctive delusions which constitute para- 
noia, the delusion of grandeur and the delu- 
sion of persecution. Nothing but his insane 
delusion made him believe that under his 
guidance Germany can overcome Russia, 
France, Great Britain and Belgium com- 
bined.' ' As this came early, at a time when 
I was still trying to answer at least the longer 
epistles, I wrote to him in an ironic mood 
that his diagnosis was the more probable as 
it evidently runs in the family, considering 
that Frederick the Great, his ancestor, also 
thought that he ought to fight against the 
144 



THE SILENT VOICES 

whole world when the honor of his people de- 
manded it. But my correspondent took that 
seriously and wrote at once : ' ' Frederick the 
Great was certainly a paranoiac, ' ' and added : 
' ' My knowledge of psychology is very slight 
and yours is very great, but mine is enough 
to convince me that many of the most influen- 
tial names in history acquired their fame 
from the results of paranoia. Among these I 
include the names of Moses, Jesus, Paul, and 
Mohammed." But however often the para- 
noia motive returns, it is outdone by one 
imaginative thought which recurs with sur- 
prising regularity, namely, "the hope that 
the Kaiser may some day hang from the top 
of the Eiffel Tower.' ' Needless to say that 
wishes of this kind are mostly expressed on 
postal cards. Others make it still easier for 
themselves. There is, for instance, one gen- 
tleman in Chicago who is evidently afraid 
that the eastern newspapers do not supply 
me sufficiently with accusations against Ger- 
many. He therefore sends me regularly 
whatever he can cut out of western news- 
papers, especially when they quote my arti- 
cles, and in happy reminiscence of his not 
quite successful German school lessons, 
145 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

writes blue pencil comments over the text 
like "Du bist dumm!" 

Do these communications really mean any- 
thing? Do not these insults simply bear the 
stamp of the unthinking men who are per- 
fectly honest but naively imitate in their 
crude and vulgar way what they see in the 
papers? If the English cables had been cut 
and they had read daily from German sources 
the wild news of glorious deeds of the Ger- 
mans and of the brutality of the Russian 
Cossacks and the infamy of the French sol- 
diers, these same men would have shouted 
themselves hoarse for the German Emperor, 
the finest man in Europe. This class of peo- 
ple simply rushes into the path of least re- 
sistance. As soon as the thinking men get 
the upper hand and the press yields to them, 
these post-card writers who may easily lick 
their intellectual weight in wildcats will be on 
the side of fairness before they know it them- 
selves. 

But I turn now to the much larger part of 
my non-German correspondence, to those who 
object to the anti-German sentiment. They 
really speak the language of all classes ; they 
come from all parts of the country ; and they 
146 



THE SILENT VOICES 

vary greatly in the character of their mo- 
tives. Many think of their personal debt to 
German people or to German culture ; others 
emphasize the historic obligation of America ; 
still more dread the frightful consequences of 
a German defeat, or condemn the one-sided- 
ness of a hasty public. But almost all speak 
like people who think for themselves, earnest, 
independent men who represent the best type 
of the wholesome American public. 

' ' The current prejudices and the ultra-pro- 
British attitude I expected, but the revelation 
of ignorance among our educated men about 
history and the obvious meaning of things 
amazes me." Or: "It would be lamentable 
if German civilization should suffer as the 
victim of blind, bellicose resentment. ' ' Or: 
"Undoubtedly the Kaiser is the friend of 
peace; undoubtedly the civilized, intelligent 
world should stand for Germany in this con- 
flict of civilizations. ' ' Or : " Amazing indeed 
is the attitude of some of our people who, I 
think, fail to realize Germany's progress and 
Kussia's blocking. I know both lands well 
and should never hesitate for a moment on 
which side to cast my lot." Or: "It seems 
to me that if my countrymen consult their 
147 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

own interests, they will not find them to lie 
either with the Slav or Japanese advance.' ' 
Or: "I am unwilling to stand by without pro- 
testing against the manifest unfairness with 
which the game is played and the cards 
stacked against your country. It is bad 
enough to have the news colored in the inter- 
ests of Germany 's foes, but it is much worse 
to prejudice American opinion by editorial 
comment founded on such news. ' ' Or : ' ' I am 
an American born and brought up and like to 
see fair play at all times. As far as Germany 
and Austria are concerned, they are not get- 
ting same, not from the European nations or 
from the American press. ' ' Or : * ' This is an 
unfair struggle any way you look at it. I am 
surprised at a power like England going in 
with such odds against two nations.' ' Or: 
1 i The crushing of Germany as bulwark of the 
Germanic race on the European continent is 
not likely to prove of advantage to the ad- 
vance of mankind. To enlighten our people 
on the real issues of this dreadful struggle 
is indeed highly necessary." Or: "I know 
that in this struggle Germany is standing for 
the essential civilization of the world and 
while I have no German blood in my veins 
148 



THE SILENT VOICES 

my sympathies are all with her. ' 9 Or : ' ' How 
anybody with a thimbleful of common-sense 
can resist this absolutely sane and true state- 
ment of the case of Germany against the 
allies passes my comprehension. The nota- 
ble fact that so sane a thinker as John Morley 
resigned from the British cabinet rather than 
join Russia in this war of aggression is most 
significant. In any event — Germany may be 
beaten — but beaten or not she did the only 
thing that a strong people could possibly do 
under the circumstances. ' ' Or: "A proud 
and manly nation cannot stoop to fling back 
the mud flung at it by the press of Europe 
and copied thoughtlessly in our own. For 
my part I earnestly hope that the Teutonic 
Hercules whose labors have been so great a 
boon to mankind will yet baffle his enemies." 
Or: "It is urgently necessary that vigorous 
methods be adopted to convince the American 
people that it is a moral struggle and an at- 
tempt to strangle the progress of the German 
people. When Russia threatened India, Eng- 
land's diplomacy induced Japan to fight her 
war. Now that Germany threatens Eng- 
land's commercial supremacy, it turns the 
legions of Europe against her." Or: "As a 
149 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

journalist, manager of a news bureau, I have 
tried to form as accurate conclusions as I 
could regarding the present absurd but mon- 
strous and gigantic war, and for the life of 
me I fail to see where Germany's error lies. 
She, as I make it out, had done her utmost 
for peace, and when Russia began to mobilize 
and kept on, Germany deserves commenda- 
tion for her strategic sense in sailing in just 
as fast as she could. I am amazed that the 
public seems to blame Germany for the war." 
Or : l l France, England and Japan in fighting 
on the side of Russia are bringing nearer by 
twenty-five years the time they will become 
actually dependencies of Russia. Nothing 
can prevent this except Germany's success 
now. Russia, being relentless and ungrateful, 
will not hesitate to break any promises she 
has made her allies for their support. " Or : 
"For us who love Germany the thing which 
hurts most deeply is less the dreadfulness of 
the material situation than the infamous and 
insidious misstatement of the issue: every 
lover of Germany should now consider him- 
self a soldier sworn to defend her good 
name." Or: "As one descended from grad- 
uates of Harvard University since 1707, as 
150 



THE SILENT VOICES 

one who has lived both in France and Ger- 
many and been intimate with the elite of both 
countries, I take the liberty of expressing 
my most heartfelt and best wishes for the 
success of Germany in this present struggle 
which I consider to be for the advancement of 
Christian, Teutonic civilization. ' ' 

I might go on in this way without end. Of 
course the real significance of these hundreds 
of letters would come out only if space al- 
lowed them to be copied complete. While I 
am writing these lines the mail brings me a 
new pile. At haphazard I take one sample. 
It is written from St. Louis. "I have no 
German blood save what I inherited through 
the Anglo-Saxon invaders of England ages 
ago, who brought with them the ideals of jus- 
tice and freedom which their latest descend- 
ants in England have forgotten. It is to me 
incomprehensible how the American press so 
generally supports Eussia and England. 
Russia stands for the most conscienceless 
and atrocious despotism, whose recent prom- 
ise of national regeneration to Poland is an 
insult to human intelligence after its crush- 
ing out the guaranteed liberties of Finland 
only yesterday. As to our relations with 
151 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

Great Britain there is much idle talk of a 
hundred years of peace. Frederick the 
Great of Prussia was the first European 
monarch to recognize our independence. 
Never have the American people suffered in- 
jury at the hands of the German people, who 
have peacefully entered our land in multi- 
tudes to help subdue the wilderness, bringing 
with them the ark of science, art and loyalty. 
Never can America fully repay this debt to 
Germans and to Germany. England ushered 
in the hundred years of peace by destroying 
our capital and presidential residence. Dur- 
ing our Civil War it was British ships and 
British cannon that swept off the seas our 
world-wide commerce. Great Britain, with- 
out the slightest intention of making a Pan- 
ama Canal herself, has from the outset 
thrown every possible obstacle in the way of 
our accomplishing it. If all this is the spirit 
of peace, rather give us war. I most ear- 
nestly pray that Providence, wearied at last 
by such presumption, has appointed Germany 
to teach Great Britain that nations, like in- 
dividuals, must learn moderation. ' ' 

To be sure, I should not do justice to my 
host of letters if I were to forget those who 
152 



THE SILENT VOICES 

do not praise and who do not blame, but sim- 
ply put questions. Here, too, many simply 
shape in interrogatory form their disap- 
proval of Germany's course. But there is 
not much variety in this field, and I have 
mostly answered such questions, because I 
was able to use the stereotyped stand- 
ard replies. The chief questions which came 
again and again were four. "Why did Ger- 
many not wait until Eussia actually declared 
war ? ' ' My answer, of course, is that if Ger- 
many had waited until Russia 's eight million 
men were mobilized, it would have lost the 
war before it had begun. It had to act as 
soon as the mobilization and actual movement 
of Russian troops began. Just as frequently 
comes the question: "If this is Germany's 
war against Russia, why did it declare war 
on France too ? ' ' My regular answer is that 
it declared war on France because France be- 
gan mobilizing and refused to promise that 
it would keep neutral during a German-Rus- 
sian war. As France wanted to use this op- 
portunity for revenge, Germany had to strike 
quickly before Russia's preparations were 
completed. The third question is: "Would 
not this war have been avoided if Germany 
153 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

had forced Austria to give up the punitive 
expedition against Servia?" I reply with 
fullest conviction that it would not have pre- 
vented the war, but simply postponed it for 
possibly a year until the Eussian prepara- 
tions for the war, with French money, had 
been completed and the chances against Ger- 
many would have been still greater. And 
curiously, the most frequent question put in 
letters and post cards on my table is this: 
"It may have been necessary for Germany 
to fight against Russia and France, but why 
did Germany make war on England V 9 My 
answer could every time be short. It did not' 
make war on England. Its whole policy was 
controlled by the wish to have firm friendship 
with England, and it is the greatest grief 
of the German people that England in the 
moment when the chances for Germany 
seemed bad took hold of the convenient 
chance to strike the commercial rival, de- 
stroyed the slowly built-up friendship, and 
declared war against the cousins on the 
continent. 



XI 



THE AMERICANS 



We have entered into the second month of 
war. How many more will follow? When 
will the day come on which I may write 
over my entry in this diary the heading 
" After the War"? But how this one month 
has already changed the aspect of the world 
conflict. Four weeks ago it seemed like mad- 
ness for Germany to dare to fight against the 
world instead of surrendering at once when 
Europe with its colossal resources was united 
in an attack on its borders. To-day the sub- 
urbs of Paris are razed in order that the 
enemy may not use the houses for protec- 
tion. The Germans are expected before the 
doors of the French capital. What a change 
also in the role which falls to the Americans 
in this historic catastrophe. At first the 
Americans appeared as entirely detached 
spectators of the European turmoil. Their 
only concern was the fate of the hundred 
155 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

thousand tourists who were caught between 
Dublin and Petersburg when the war trap 
was sprung. 

But how quickly did every day bring to 
the new world fresh evidence that civilized 
mankind is one. The economic changes were 
felt most directly. The exchanges were 
closed; the food prices went up; the impor- 
ters and exporters faced a new situation; 
bankers were stunned; a million men in the 
textile mills foresaw idleness as the dyestuffs 
were not on hand; American securities were 
unloaded by panic-stricken Europe. America 
felt that no shell could explode on the old 
world battlegrounds without some splinters 
hitting the skyscrapers on the other side of 
the ocean. At the same time new hopes, new 
plans, new achievements were stirring the 
country. The American crop is abundant, 
while Europe is threatened by famine. New 
industries are starting to fill the gaps of im- 
port. A great merchant marine is surely to 
come from this perverted time in which hun- 
dreds of large ocean carriers lie idle in the 
harbors of the Atlantic. New markets of 
the world invite American efficiency. South 
America is ready for a great friendly inva- 
156 



THE AMERICANS 

sion from the north. Everything is in change 
for the worse or for the better. 

With the economic changes have come new 
developments in the social and the political 
attitude. America is the one great neutral 
country. But the mood of the population has 
not remained neutral for a single day. A 
great wave of hostility to Germany has over- 
flooded the land. In the first two weeks the 
rush against Berlin was senseless. The 
newspapers of that depressing period will 
remain sad human documents of a sober peo- 
ple losing its mind. The first vehement re- 
action came necessarily from the Germans 
themselves in America; it called not for a 
similar outburst against Eussia or France 
or England, but simply for fair play. The 
twenty-five millions of German descent were 
soon joined by the quiet, impartial elements 
of all races. At the end of the second week 
came a slight change in the newspapers all 
along the line, and now the sober elements of 
the American people are beginning to feel 
sorry that such a passionate outbreak of the 
whole nation was possible in a time in which 
a calm judicial attitude was needed more 
than ever. Of course, there are still con- 
157 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

servative cliques which have been brought 
up in the dogma that France and England 
cannot do any wrong, and there are news- 
papers which write for them. There are still 
larger groups which are accustomed to a 
kind of rationalistic philosophizing about 
democracy and which vaguely feel that Ger- 
many's defeat would mean a rise of demo- 
cratic government in the world, whatever the 
right or wrong in the beginning of the war 
may have been. They do not see that Ger- 
many is internally as democratic as any coun- 
try in the world, that its defeat would mean 
only the rise of Russia's autocracy, that Ger- 
many's monarchic state form has deep his- 
toric roots and has proved a most fortunate 
condition for Germany's unparalleled growth 
in the prosperity and happiness of its peo- 
ple. 

Whatever extreme groups and cliques may 
think, the nation as a whole has to-day 
probably overcome that blind, passionate un- 
fairness of the first weeks, but it is not yet 
ready to listen to both sides really without 
prejudice. It has not found again its high 
place of dignity; it has forgotten that 
its mother country is the whole of Europe. 
158 



THE AMERICANS 

Such retreat from the eccentric position of 
the partisan to the central stronghold of the 
truly neutral is the more to be desired, as this 
great historic month has also made it clearer 
every day that America's political influence 
in the war is of highest import. The na- 
tion was not aware in the first hours how 
much even slight decisions of the government 
might influence the happenings at the the- 
ater of war. The censorship of the wireless 
or the government aid of the merchant 
marine or the endorsement of war loans or 
the activities of American ambassadors in 
Europe or the interpretation of contraband 
and hundreds of other much aired ques- 
tions have brought the responsibility of 
Ajnerica much nearer to the consciousness of 
everybody. Each day will bring new prob- 
lems which must be solved not only in the 
White House, but in the whole area from 
Maine to California. And overtowering all 
of them stands America's gigantic task, to 
give to Europe honorable peace. No greater 
deed, no greater work for mankind was ever 
within this nation's reach. 

No doubt the lack of judicial attitude has 
often sprung from the difficulty the average 
159 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

American has in thinking himself into Euro- 
pean politics. He takes an nnhistoric stand- 
point and interprets old world movements by- 
motives and ideas which are foreign to them. 
It has often been claimed that this lack of 
insight into the European mind is the fault 
of a particular party. I do not think so. 
Republicans, Progressives, and Democrats 
may sin equally there. On the other hand, 
their historically best trained minds are 
equally open to the fullest understanding of 
Europe and especially of Germany, which is 
perhaps hardest to understand and which 
can least be brought into a routine formula of 
American politics. If I consider the three 
presidential leaders in which the three par- 
ties have found their marked expression, I 
feel equal warmth of admiration. Before me 
lies a long letter, almost an essay, about the 
war from Colonel Roosevelt, and every word, 
if any new proof were needed, shows such 
a perfect grasp of Europe as the European 
sees it that in foreign politics I am surely a 
Progressive, if that is Progressivism. Yet 
I remember just on the day when Theodore 
Roosevelt on his way from Africa was the 
guest of Emperor William in Berlin I had 
160 



THE AMERICANS 

luncheon in the White House with President 
Taft. It was only natural that his conversa- 
tion should have lingered about that Berlin 
meeting of the two so unusual and in many 
respects so similar men. As my wife and I 
were the only guests, Mr. Taft spoke without 
reserve and his whole delightful humor scin- 
tillated through his talk. His judicious 
statesmanship, however, gave the keynote, 
and every word indicated such a splendid, 
truly historic grasp of the European lands in 
world perspective that as far as international 
politics is concerned I am thoroughly a Be- 
publican, if that is Kepublicanism. And my 
memory goes still further back. In this study 
of mine here at the seashore where I am writ- 
ing the pages of this diary "Woodrow Wilson 
once sat, at that time still president of Prince- 
ton, and we spoke long about European move- 
ments and European ideals. I was deeply 
impressed by his masterful analysis of the 
deeper European energies from the stand- 
point of an American. It was that conversa- 
tion which made me, not long after, express 
in a German paper the conviction that the 
Democratic party surely could not find a finer 
and more far-sighted statesman than Wilson. 
161 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

No doubt, I am from the depths of my heart 
a Democrat, as far as foreign politics is con- 
cerned, if that is typical Democracy. 

But even if the average American is un- 
prepared or unwilling to interpret the Euro- 
pean conflict with European ideas, and meas- 
ures less with the standards of the historian 
than with those of the editorial writer, I trust 
that now after the first excitement has evap- 
orated the conditions will be more favorable 
for a sincere neutral attitude. The one-sided 
prejudice against the German cause cannot 
possibly last through the cooler second month 
of war. All the historic sympathies which 
had been rashly suppressed in the first pas- 
sion must awake again. Was not the whole 
development of the United States accom- 
panied by the good will of political and cul- 
tural Germany? It is true our schoolbooks 
make little of it. The German-Americans 
have often pointed to the partiality with 
which historic knowledge is implanted in the 
pupils from the grade school to the college. 
They learn much about the glorious help 
which young Lafayette brought to the cause 
of the colonies in their struggle for indepen- 
dence, but they do not hear that the service 
162 



THE AMERICANS 

of von Steuben was more effective. After all, 
we had only last week the anniversary of 
England's capture of Washington when the 
capital was burned and wantonly sacked by 
British soldiers and sailors. England's ac- 
tion during the Civil War bristled with un- 
friendliness. It is good that the youth of 
to-day is taught to suppress such reminis- 
cences and that the old feeling of antagonism 
toward Great Britain has become rare. But 
that ought not to push into the background 
the historic fact that Germany has been help- 
ing the American cause in every hour of need 
down to the last incident at Tampico where a 
German cruiser helped the American refu- 
gees. 

But with this good will from official Ger- 
many goes through two centuries the good 
will of the millions who settled in the new 
world and helped with untiring energy to 
make it the America of to-day. They gave 
their blood to save the Union; they gave 
their soul to make it a land of honesty, of 
efficiency, of achievement in every field. 
Moreover, the community of interests be- 
tween Americans and Germans has steadily 
swelled the stream of those who went to Ger- 
163 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

many to see, to learn, to form friendships. 
The memory of hundreds of thousands lin- 
gers on happy hours in Germany. Such 
reminiscences were driven away in those first 
angry August weeks; the fresher winds of 
the fall will bring them back. 

The news of the day can only strengthen 
these fairer feelings toward Germany. The 
reports grow that the Americans have been 
surrounded with hospitable kindness through- 
out Germany. Every day now brings new 
stories of the unanimous effort with which 
the German people tried to make easy the 
discomfort which the war brought to the 
traveling Americans. It is no chance that 
ever so many were unwilling to follow the 
advice of the ambassadors and insisted on 
staying on German soil throughout the war. 
But there are other bits of news which must 
push sentiment into the same groove. The 
Americans did not like Japan's mixing in at 
the side of England. This capturing of Ger- 
many's little colony in China by a sly trick 
when Germany's hands were bound had to 
awake sympathy in every American. But 
this was outdone by the latest move of the 
campaign which has brought Hindus from 
164 



THE AMERICANS 

India and Turkos from Africa into line 
against the German people. To force these 
colored races, which surely have not the 
slightest cause to fight the German nation, 
into battle against the Teutons is an act 
which must have brought a feeling of shame 
for the allies to every true American. 

Yet it is truly not necessary to bolster up 
the sympathy for Germany by an aversion to 
the acts of its enemies. Cordial feelings of 
Americans for the German people are cer- 
tainly not dependent upon an animosity 
against Russia and France and least of all 
against England. The neutrality for which 
President Wilson fought and which the Ger- 
mans prayed for means a suspension of 
judgment as to the right and wrong of the 
war, hatred and condemnation of none of the 
parties, sympathy for all, There is no inkling 
of the neutrality which the President upholds 
as long as the press indicts and convicts Ger- 
many and the Emperor without evidence, 
from mere passionate prejudice. But the 
feeling that America and central Europe 
ought to be bound together by cordial good 
will does not preclude in the least the warm- 
est friendship with western Europe. If Ger- 
165 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

man thoughts go out to the time after the 
war at all in this hour of excitement, they 
wish for nothing better than for a sincere 
union of understanding between Germany, 
France, England, and America. The Germans 
do not preach hatred against their neighbors, 
but they insist that it would be a gigantic 
calamity if this war were to cut the ties of 
the American and the German nations, ties 
of culture and of intercourse, of welfare and 
of reform, of trade and of industry, of science 
and of literature, of art and of music, of 
philosophy and of religion. 

The mere thought of such an unfortunate 
result is intolerable; and yet even now, 
though the wild storm of the first weeks has 
passed by, the gravest fears overshadow the 
hopes which the last years fostered. It 
would be a disaster for both countries alike, 
as the harmonious fellowship and mutual 
inner attunement of the two peoples were 
among the most valuable and most ideal 
forces in modern civilization. 

From day to day the two nations sought 
each other with finer instincts; the sym- 
pathies became keener, the interests more 
abundant. It was a national elective af- 
166 



THE AMERICANS 

finity for which the political friendship 
was a fitting outer expression. And sud- 
denly, a tornado is breaking into the 
world: can it really be that with one crash 
all the ties are broken and destroyed? Can 
it really be that the friendship of yesterday 
has turned into impatient anger and sneering 
disgust? What has happened? What is 
America's complaint against the Germans? 

To begin with the outskirts we have had 
to hear a hundred times that Germany can- 
not expect the Americans to take sides with 
it in its struggle, as the Germans did not 
sympathize with America in its last war ; the 
press even belittled the American intentions 
during the Spanish War and sneered at 
American life afterward. It is true that the 
German press had much sympathy with 
Spain, because the Spanish appeared so piti- 
fully weak compared with the mighty oppo- 
nent. It is true also that at that time the 
Germans still knew little of the spiritual 
America and saw everything from the angle 
of the American chase for the dollar. This 
has been changed completely. Moreover, 
while many a superficial editorial word may 
have then and later irritated a sensitive 
167 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

American reader, there was never a line writ- 
ten which could be compared with the bitter- 
ness and hatred against the Germans during 
this campaign. The worst which was said 
was that America went to Cuba not with un- 
selfish motives, but in the service of capitalis- 
tic interests. That was unfair; the accusa- 
tion was later emphatically withdrawn. But 
does that really justify the American nation 
in declaring that the Germans, when they de- 
fend their homes against Russian and French 
attack, are nothing but pirates and that their 
Emperor ought to be treated like a murderer ? 
On the other hand the kind of superfluous 
criticism which can be still found in German 
papers is utterly harmless. It is on the level 
with the American jokes about German beer 
drinking and sauerkraut eating, jokes which 
neither the writer nor the reader really be- 
lieves. Malicious essays like those of Price 
Collier here on the stupidity of the German 
women and the bad manners of the German 
men hardly find a counterpart nowadays in 
the German discussion of American life, as 
far as responsible writers are concerned. The 
worst which I found last year were tasteless 
jokes on Secretary Bryan's Chautauqua lec- 
168 



THE AMERICANS 

hiring, and yet I have read a hundred times 
sharper witticisms about it in Bryan's native 
land. The Americans have to-day no reason 
to complain about the German attitude. It 
is in vain to justify the American outbreak 
as the resentment against unfairness from 
the other side. 

It is still worse if American public opinion 
is whipped with the argument that Americans 
must take the side of the allies because if 
Germany came to increased power its next 
foe would be the United States. It is claimed 
that the Germans would be ambitious to have 
colonies like England and that large prov- 
inces in Argentine and perhaps in Brazil are 
the long coveted goal. Even in the confusion 
of war excitement such silliness ought to be 
below the level of any decent editorial page. 
These absurdities have been spread a hun- 
dred times by those who hope to gain some 
sly advantage from a distrust of the Ger- 
man government by the American people. 
But a hundred and one times they have been 
proved to be grotesque inventions. It is more 
probable since Mr. Williams of Massachu- 
setts took charge of Albanian politics that 
America will establish a kingdom in the Euro- 
169 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

pean Balkans than that Germany will estab- 
lish a colony in South America. 

The Americans are too little aware how 
they misunderstand the German government 
and responsible Germany altogether if they 
identify it ever with the fantastic dreams 
of the so-called Pan-Germanists. It is true 
there are a few pensioned naval officers and 
retired colonels of the army and some irre- 
sponsible oration makers who gloriously out- 
Hearst the Hearst editorials and who on pa- 
triotic occasions swallow some neighboring 
lands, preferably Holland and Denmark, and 
if they are in noble spirits also half of Aus- 
tria and a part of Turkey. Nobody takes 
them seriously, and to identify the govern- 
ment with such hashish dreamers is prepos- 
terous. But even these courageous clowns 
nowadays leave America alone and respect 
the Monroe Doctrine. It was the most inex- 
cusable incident of the war's first month that 
certain newspapers tried insistently to stir 
up the American crowd against Germany by 
such treacherous alarm cries. 

What really remains? The newspapers 
have forced the idea on the nation that every 
true American dislikes such a personality as 
170 



THE AMERICANS 

that of the German Emperor. His constant 
desire to fight, his militaristic preparations, 
his anticultural belief in might as against 
right, must be deeply repugnant to every 
American citizen. They do not object to the 
Czar of Russia or the King of Servia or of 
Italy or of Belgium or to the Mikado. The 
German monarch alone is the tyrant. Yet 
he is the man whom only a year ago all 
America celebrated after a quarter century 
of his reign as the greatest energy for peace 
in all Europe. If the Emperor's life had 
come to an end three months ago he would 
have figured in every American schoolbook 
of European history for centuries to come as 
the greatest peace monarch of his age. And 
yet he would have lived long enough truly 
to be tested. Now since the ' ' White Books ' r 
have been published in Berlin and London 
and since the actions behind the scenes in 
the Emperor's palace have become more fully 
understood we know better than a month ago 
that he remained such an agent for peace up 
to the last hour of the days which preceded 
the war. As he had worked to prevent a 
Pan-European war at the dangerous times 
of the Balkan troubles, so he did again. He 
171 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

hoped and hoped that peace could be pre- 
served, until it became evident that Russia 
was playing a double game and asked for 
the continuance of peace negotiations while 
it secretly carried the concentration of troops 
beyond the point where war would be still 
avoidable. 

But the American people has made up its 
mind that Germany had slowly worked to- 
ward this war, because it showed itself per- 
fectly prepared when it broke out. Yes: 
Germany was prepared, has been prepared 
for forty-four years, but had hoped that this 
state of mere preparation would last forty- 
four years more. Every American takes it 
as a matter of course that England kept 
its gigantic navy always ready to fight, be- 
cause it is vital for Great Britain's very 
existence ; he overlooks that an army able to 
fight in the east and the west was equally 
necessary for the existence of Germany. If 
that is militarism, the slightest neglect of 
such a militaristic policy would have meant 
sure disaster to the whole German nation 
long before the twentieth century started. 
This vigilant militarism which was a national 
insurance policy made neither the Emperor 
172 



THE AMERICANS 

nor the government nor the leading classes 
nor the people at large in the least disloyal 
to the ideal aims of German traditions. Is 
the will to fight when the honor of the coun- 
try is threatened so unknown to the Amer- 
ican soul? Can we forget that outburst of 
fighting spirit at the Venezuela time when 
President Cleveland rattled the saber? And 
last May when Huerta refused to salute the 
flag one solitary congressman from Cali- 
fornia made a calm peace speech ; he was at 
once isolated: all Congress dashed toward 
war. The Germans knew that for them the 
issue of the war was : to be or not to be. 

Day after day the Americans have seen 
cartoons denouncing the German men at the 
top, themselves in safe and comfortable 
places, ruthlessly hounding the unwilling 
populace to the battlefields. It was as true 
as most of the news on which the Americans 
crystallized their opinions. The answer to 
those cartoons came with ringing voice from 
the fatherland. In every battle were princes 
falling, and while millions had to march into 
the field as regular or reserve soldiers, more 
than two million other men offered them- 
selves as volunteers, two million whom no- 
173 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

body urged, but who felt the sacred call of 
conscience. Their country was attacked in- 
famously; they wanted to die for it. Those 
cartoonists were the men in the safe places 
who whipped the millions of peaceful Amer- 
ican readers ruthlessly and shamefully to the 
passionate attack against their best friends, 
the Germans. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

Three million men stand to-day in battle 
line against one another. Three million men ! 
As long as men have lived on earth, they 
have fought. But all fighting through the 
thousands of years seems like mere skirmish- 
ing compared with these gigantic armies of 
armies. The world has drilled and trained 
and planned and worked through half a cen- 
tury for this battle of the millions, and a 
thousand years may pass before mankind 
witnesses again a fight of men like this. The 
results of victory or defeat will be enormous ; 
men will speak about it as long as history 
goes on— and yet there is something greater 
in the world than even a battle line which 
girdles the globe, something endlessly more 
important than triumphant victory and shat- 
tering defeat: the issue of right and wrong. 
If Germany's guns carried the day and the 
century and its cause was not one of right- 
175 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

eousness, every German would bow his head 
in shame. If it were overwhelmed by the 
number of enemies, every German would be 
stunned by grief at the disaster of his father- 
land, but he would remain proud of his people 
if the moral right is with it. The German 
feels that for the nation and the individual 
alike Schiller's word is written: "Life is 
not the highest of goods, but guilt is the 
greatest of all calamities. ' ' 

Germany's enemies have raised the cry, 
and Americans have taken it up, that Ger- 
many has committed sin after sin. The moral 
issue was brought to the foreground, and 
that portion of the American press which 
stands under the spell of English suggestions 
hides every German victory behind accusa- 
tions of treachery and immorality. Germany 
has broken the treaties ; Germany committed 
dastardly atrocities with bombs from air- 
ships ; Germany burned towns and murdered 
the helpless ; Germany shrinks from no crime 
and no perfidy. Is there any truth in all this ? 
Yes : one truth, which is undeniable, which is 
sad, which is awful, namely that war is war. 
But shame on him who poisons the wells of 
public opinion by falsifying the atrocious 
176 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

cruelties which the work of war demands 
into immoralities when the one side is con- 
cerned while they are approved as necessities 
when the other side is in question. 

It is not worth while to discuss the grue- 
some stories of nefarious acts against the 
wounded or helpless enemies. They are 
hardly conscious lies; they are the hysteric 
illusions of overexcited brains. The bystand- 
ers are really convinced that they saw the 
horrible ferocities. I fancy that Richard 
Harding Davis believed sincerely that he ac- 
tually saw those wild impossibilities with 
which his reports are bristling, and even the 
minor American fiction writers who send 
their romances from the field of German im- 
moralities were surely ready to take an oath 
to their inventions. Every psychologist 
knows these hallucinatory phenomena of the 
witness stand. Exactly the same thing, of 
course, occurred on the other side. Number- 
less German witnesses believe themselves to 
have observed the most unspeakable cruel- 
ties from Belgians and Frenchmen. It would 
be psychologically most surprising if the be- 
numbing sight of fight and death, of suffering 
and wounds, did not upset many an unbal- 
177 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

anced mind and did not surround it with a 
whirlwind of needless horrors and willful 
cruelties. The wildest exaggerations must be 
expected. On the whole those alleged cruel- 
ties and atrocities are probably on all sides 
nothing but products of horrified imagina- 
tion, and nobody has a right to blame the 
victims of such illusions for their terrorizing 
fancies. But the public ought to blame those 
papers which give broad display to such ab- 
surd cabled rumors whenever they come f f om 
the anti-German side. 

But how with the reproaches against Ger- 
many's official warfare, the burning of a Bel- 
gian town in which the population had se- 
cretly provided itself with firearms and shot 
from the windows in a sniping attack against 
the troops through a whole day? How with 
the use of bombs thrown from an airship into 
Antwerp? Yes: war is war. Have the 
Americans forgotten their own last war on 
a large scale? General Sherman wrote: 
' ' The amount of burning, stealing, and plun- 
dering done by our army makes me ashamed 
of it." But this shame refers only to the 
private looting which is anyhow unthinkable 
in a war of to-day. It does not refer to the 
178 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

official destruction. Sherman wrote deliber- 
ately and officially: "I should not hesitate 
to burn Savannah, Charleston, and Wilming- 
ton if the garrisons were needed. Of ne- 
cessity in war the commander on the spot 
is the judge and may take your house, your 
fields, your everything and turn you all out 
helpless to starve. Our duty is not to build 
up; it is rather to destroy both the rebel 
army and whatever wealth or property it has 
founded its boasted strength upon." The 
historians like to call Sherman a "typical 
American." American Shermans of to-day 
would act just as the German generals acted 
against the sniping Belgians on the march to 
Paris. War is war. 

Binding for war are only the international 
laws on which the nations have solemnly 
agreed. There is not the slightest item of 
such laws which has not been carefully re- 
spected by the German army and navy. 
Those laws cannot be supplemented at any 
moment by the desires of sympathetic by- 
standers. We all must be full of pity when 
we hear that in this war the attacks against 
fortresses like Antwerp and Paris are made 
also by bombs from airships. But it 
179 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

is a fact that this is not forbidden by 
the agreements. It was especially dis- 
cussed in the last Hague conference and 
both France and Germany voted in favor 
of allowing this new horrible method. We 
peace people, of course, feel our nerves revolt 
against this and other new schemes. When be- 
fore Liege masses of German troops marched 
unwittingly on undermined ground and 
were then killed by the dynamite explosion, 
impartial nerves must shiver, too. And so 
without end before all this strategical futur- 
ism. But our mere nerves cannot be decisive. 
We simply must acknowledge that everything 
is allowed which is not forbidden in war and 
no moral reproach is in order as long as the 
international agreements are respected. The 
professionals probably offer us a correct con- 
solation when they claim that just the re- 
gardless war is effective and therefore short, 
while the half-hearted is war horror without 
end. In any case when in the first days of 
the war French aviators threw bombs into 
Nuremberg and Coblenz, the Americans 
treated it as a picturesque event which gave 
new interest to modern warfare and which 
showed brilliantly the wonders of modern 
180 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

technique. Only when the same was done by 
the Germans, America stood aghast. 

There remains only one grave point: the 
neutrality of Belgium. No doubt Germany 
had agreed to treat Belgium as a neutral 
state. But what are the facts'? On the day 
the war between France and Germany 
seemed unavoidable, it was reported that 
fifty automobiles full of French officers 
rushed over the frontier to Liege and were 
welcomed in the fortress, which had partly 
been built by French engineers. Immedi- 
ately afterward French aviators passed 
through Belgium on their way to the Rhine, 
where they began their bomb throwing at 
the Coblenz bridges. Everything suggested 
that Germany's long-standing fear was jus- 
tified, that French-speaking Belgium was in 
a secret understanding with France, that it 
would allow to the French army liberties 
which would at once expose Germany's most 
defenseless portion to attack. Germany had 
no right to wait until it might be too late. 
It had to force its troops over Belgian* ter- 
ritory before the French could undertake in 
great style what they had started to do. Yet 
Germany did not come to Belgium as an 
181 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

enemy ; it promised to repay any damage and 
not only guaranteed the integrity of the land 
bnt was most willing to make every possible 
restitution. 

Belgium chose to put itself on the side of 
France, with which its sympathies have al- 
ways connected it. It was an hour in which 
the world was sure of French victory as 
Russia was battering at the gates of Ger- 
many from the other side and England was to 
give its mighty aid, too. Belgium thus be- 
came one of the allies, enthusiastically will- 
ing to help in this world rush against Ger- 
many. Did this mean that Germany attacked 
a land which was unprotected and which had 
relied for its safety on its neutrality papers ! 
Certainly not. The story of the fights about 
Liege tells of the gigantic fortifications with 
which Belgium had prepared itself for just 
this German attack. Belgium was one great 
fortified camp, and every stone in the walls 
must have been carried to them with the 
understanding that the course of historic 
events in the next war would force France 
and Germany to fight on Belgian battle- 
grounds, and that Belgium ought to take 
sides with the probable winner. Belgians and 
182 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

Germans did not meet for the first time. A 
great war reporter from the time when the 
reporting was still wireless and the warring 
still fireless, Julius Caesar tells that the Bel- 
gians are very courageous and that they live 
next to the Germans, who are settled in the 
Ehine region, and that they live in constant 
warfare with them. 

Belgium knew exactly that these neutrality 
treaties were not treaties comparable to the 
contracts of private persons who are bound 
by the laws of the land and by the laws of 
honesty to fulfill them under every possible 
condition. It is nothing but sheer hypocrisy 
if the enemies of Germany, including the 
Anglophile portion of the American press, 
behave as if this had not been common knowl- 
edge the world over. This kind of treaties has 
been violated in the last fifty years almost as 
often as any conflicts have happened. Only 
this morning the papers report China's offi- 
cial protest against the breach of the neutral- 
ity treaty by Japan, which has landed troops 
to fight against Kiau Chau in plain defiance 
of the agreement. There was no life need 
for Japan to break the treaty, as there was 
for Germany, but of course Japan is now 
183 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

England's friend and its breach of neutrality- 
is therefore perfectly agreeable and welcome 
on Broadway. 

Did not America break its solemn treaty 
with Colombia when a vital interest was in- 
volved? Is not the majority of Congress 
even inclined to apologize for the wrong 
which was done to Colombia in the Panama 
revolution? Yet could Roosevelt really have 
acted otherwise? Was it not true, moral 
statesmanship to put America's canal work 
above a treaty which, like all such interna- 
tional agreements, was made with the reser- 
vation that it holds only if it does not come 
into conflict with the life and honor of the 
people involved. Gladstone, to whom the 
present English statesmen refer, has clearly 
said that this is also England's view con- 
cerning the treaties with Belgium. It was 
England 's view until it became convenient to 
change it for the purpose of denouncing Ger- 
many. 

America's most popular statesman has 
said a hundred times that such international 
arbitration treaties are not worth the paper 
on which they are written and that they are 
too often even dangerous, because they give 
184 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

an illusory feeling of safety. They seem to 
abolish the fundamental law of five thousand 
years of history that ultimately the life needs 
of a healthy nation are decisive. To be sure, 
Belgium knew better and made its war plans. 
It knew that such agreements are at pres- 
ent not more than a matter of international 
etiquette. Certainly life goes on more 
smoothly and more pleasantly, if we stick to 
the rules of etiquette and to the prescrip- 
tions of nice manners. But everybody knows 
that etiquette stops when the house is on fire 
and that good manners must be forgotten 
even by the best mannered when life and 
death are involved. Germany did what any 
other state would have done, did it with re- 
gret and with the best will not to bring any 
suffering to Belgium, if Belgium only would 
not join the allies. But Germany could do 
what it did with a clean conscience ; it did not 
violate the higher laws of honor. 

Will it ever be otherwise? Can we hope 
that treaties and arbitration will ever be a 
substitute for the wars of mankind? I do 
not believe it. I suppose I have spent more 
time in the last ten years reading peace lit- 
erature than with any other branch of popu- 
185 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

lar interests, and I have devoted myself to 
the study of it with sincere admiration for 
this noble and most inspiring of efforts. 
I am on the side of the peace movement with 
all my heart; I believe in its magnificent 
work and should gladly do whatever is in my 
power to propagate it and to serve it. But 
I utterly reject the idea that this propaganda 
for peace and this fight against war can be 
compared with the struggle of the social re- 
formers against crime or with that of the 
hygienists against disease. Such compari- 
sons create a distorting perspective. War is 
not crime and war is not disease. 

I should much rather compare the relation 
between the treaty believers and the believ- 
ers in war with the relation between the pro- 
tectionists and the free traders in the eco- 
nomic field. I myself believe heartily in pro- 
tectionism and feel in the fullest sympathy 
with the efforts of those who argue against 
free trade and against the economic destruc- 
tion which results from unbridled commercial 
and industrial rivalry. But this does not 
mean that I consider free trade a crime or 
a disease. On the contrary, I know exactly 
that there are natural limits to every protec- 
186 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

tionist policy. The high tariff has to be low- 
ered as soon as monopolistic abuses arise, 
and concessions to free trade are sometimes 
necessary. To be sure, even when the time 
of the free traders comes, we protectionists 
hope that the tariffs will be only lowered 
and not entirely abolished. The friends of 
treaties and arbitration must hope in the 
same way that when the hours of war come 
international treaties will not be entirely 
eliminated. The work of the Hague confer- 
ences and of those thousand agencies in the 
Carnegie world can be a magnificent gain for 
civilization and a blessing for mankind even 
if their achievements can never be substituted 
for war. 

We workers for peace and arbitration must 
not deceive ourselves : whatever the outcome 
of the present war may be, there will be little 
faith in arbitration in the near future. We 
have read so often that great wars will no 
longer be possible because the power of the 
world has gone into the hands of two classes 
which are mightier than governments and 
armies, the labor class with the socialist vote 
and the banker class with the financial influ- 
ence. We have heard that they would not 
187 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

allow war. Can we ever enjoy this confi- 
dence again? There is no doubt that capi- 
talism did not want this European war. The 
bankers of the world worked against it, and 
yet when the national passions were awak- 
ened the opposition of the stock exchanges 
was no more obstacle than straws before an 
express train. The ineffectiveness of the so- 
cialist opposition was still more surprising. 
The army of workingmen had nowhere de- 
nounced war more than in Germany, but 
when the sudden attack of Russia on Ger- 
many became known the socialist opposition 
turned like a flash into enthusiasm for the 
war. The socialists in the Reichstag who 
represent nearly five million votes cheered 
the Emperor and approved unanimously the 
gigantic budget for the fight. Their leaders 
entered the army as volunteers. 

Moreover, the faith in the binding power 
of treaties must be thoroughly discredited, 
not because a German army passed through 
Belgium, but above all because Italy refused 
to fight. The alliance of Italy with Germany 
and Austria was the one solid stone in the 
foundation of European politics. Every cal- 
culation as to the international future began 
188 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

with the one claim that if ever Germany and 
Austria had to fight against three enemies, 
they could count on Italy's loyalty. The 
treaties which pledged this help appeared so 
firm and trustworthy that nothing could de- 
prive Berlin and Vienna of Rome's help in 
the hour of danger. And yet when the time 
came Italian lawyers found technicalities by 
which they could pose as having the right to 
refuse the sacrifice. If this Italian treaty 
failed, who can hope for a treaty which could 
not be pushed aside by a skillful misinterpre- 
tation? After this breach of faith the world 
knows that a treaty will be binding exactly 
as long as it serves the realistic interests of 
the nation. The treaties of the Triple En- 
tente—or in view of Belgium, it ought prob- 
ably to have been called for a long time the 
Quadruple Entente — worked well because 
France and England had an actual interest 
to jump in at the time when the colossal ar- 
mies of Russia moved against Germany. 

But the essential point remains after all 
that war has its own value and morals. Just 
as free trade is not only a negative element 
in human progress, an opposition to protec- 
tionism, but has its positive advantages for 
189 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

the development of economic life, war too is 
not simply a disruption of the international 
peace, but can become a positive creator of 
better and higher forms of the life of man- 
kind. First of all, only war can adjust the 
power of countries to the changing stages of 
their inner development. It is easily said, and 
the average American likes to say it, that 
nations ought to respect the possessions of 
other nations as individuals respect the pri- 
vate property of their neighbors. But this 
apparently highest morality would be the 
grossest immorality. The property of a man 
can grow through his industry; there is un- 
limited supply ; he does not need to take any- 
thing by force from his lazier or his less in- 
telligent competitor. But if war were abol- 
ished the peoples which have poor land to- 
day must remain poor through the centuries ; 
however much they may progress internally 
they would have no right to expand, as they 
would do so at the expense of their neigh- 
bors. The peoples which are on rich land 
could be sure to retain their possessions, even 
if they became unworthy and useless for the 
march of civilization. The world's progress 
has depended at all times upon the expansive 

190 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

ascendency of the sound, strong, solid and 
able nations and the shrinking of those which 
have lost their healthy qualities and have be- 
come unfit or decadent. Why is one particu- 
lar stage of this international development, 
the chance distribution of power to-day or to- 
morrow, more worthy of legal conservation 
than any previous ? 

Once the sun never sank on the world em- 
pire of Spain. Would it have been better if 
no enemies could have dismembered it, when 
it began to hinder the advance of mankind? 
Was it not righteous- when finally America 
took a portion of Spain's ill-treated posses- 
sions under its protection? Where are the 
vast realms of Portugal, of Holland, of Tur- 
key, to-day? Was it wrong that the Amer- 
ican colonies disturbed the legal status of 
England's possessions? The laws of the 
equity courts applied to nations must stifle 
progress, must forcibly insure the perma- 
nency of any chance monopoly, of any inher- 
ited domain, for which the cultural inner 
right may have long ago been lost. 

When Prussia was defeated by Napoleon 
in 1806, it really had failed to preserve the 
sterling qualities which secured the victories 
191 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

of Frederick the Great. The old spirit of 
duty and thoroughness had yielded for a 
generation to flabbiness and frivolity. Prus- 
sia deserved the humiliation and the losses 
which sobered it again and stirred it up to a 
new moral rise. If every nation's boundaries 
were guaranteed by a world court, mankind 
would necessarily sink. A new adjustment 
to the inner growth or decay must set in from 
time to time. Spanish misrule in Cuba, Tur- 
kish misrule in the Balkans, had to stop. It 
may be that it is time to stop Eussian mis- 
rule in Poland. 

But often it would be unfair to speak of 
national wrong. It may be that both rivals 
are morally right in their wishes, but that 
their wishes cannot be harmonious. If two 
men love the same woman, neither of them 
is wrong, and yet only one can possess her. 
If two nations grow, there may be conflict- 
ing needs of expansion; both may need a 
strip of land, a harbor, an island, an outlet 
to the coast, if they are to develop their re- 
sources. Neither Russia nor Japan was in 
the wrong when their wholesome growth led 
them to mutual interference. No tribunal of 
the world can find in such cases a decision, be- 
192 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

cause it is no question of right. Both parties 
are equally on moral ground, and the source 
of the conflict is only the scarcity of the avail- 
able land, in sharp contrast to the unlimited 
goods which the individuals covet. Then 
strength alone can bring a final decision. 

To be sure, the sacrifice of blood may be 
terrific and the thought of the carnage must 
make us shudder in times of peace. But the 
progress of the world demands a higher 
point of view. Every human being must die. 
Is there a nobler death than to give one's 
life for the better life of the nation, to die 
that the country may live a fuller embodi- 
ment of the national ideals? For the in- 
dividual, sudden death on the battlefield in 
the overwhelming excitement is much less 
cruel than the agonies which millions of 
deathbeds bring in peaceful homes. And we 
ought not to forget the solemn words of 
President Wilson who, before the coffins of 
the victims of Vera Cruz, said in deep emo- 
tion: "I never was under fire, but I fancy 
that there are some things just as hard. I 
fancy that it is just as hard to do your duty 
when men are sneering at you as when they 
are shooting at you.'' 

193 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

But the sacrifices which the nation brings 
in war must anyhow not be viewed with ref- 
erence to individuals. If a nation is victori- 
ous — and the hope of victory is of course the 
only motive which makes war possible — the 
nation may gain ten lives for every one which 
it spends. The American colonies spilled 
costly blood, but if those lives had not been 
given, the present territory of the United 
States would be settled by twenty instead 
of a hundred millions. If the German states 
had not sacrificed hundreds of thousands of 
lives, Germany would never have reached 
that strength and wealth and through them 
that industrial and scientific, technical and 
hygienic progress which meant life and hap- 
piness for millions on millions who would 
have remained unborn or would have died in 
childhood. The imagination of mankind is 
too easily impressed by sudden dramatic 
events, compared with the slow working of 
destructive forces. If the Titanic sinks, the 
globe is aghast, but if a ten times larger 
number of human beings are destroyed by 
avoidable accidents through carelessness in 
the structure and service of the railways, it 
is hardly noticed. If a state in undisturbed 
194 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

peace remains on a low level of hygiene and 
science, has poor labor legislation, does not 
protect the women and children, has a high 
criminal record, indulges in alcohol, is 
scourged by venereal diseases and infected 
by the small family habit, the loss and the 
maiming of human beings is a hundred times 
larger than that which may come on the 
battlefield. A victorious war may bring to 
such a nation a complete regeneration: the 
moral energies awake ; vice is repressed ; life 
is protected; education flourishes; hygiene 
spreads; science rebuilds the land; prosper- 
ity grows; temperance and self-discipline 
prevail; family life can expand in the new 
abundance. For every boy who dies, a score 
of men and women in the next generation 
will find the means of health and happiness. 
Nobody dies at Thermopylae without giving 
life to hundreds. 

A gigantic destruction of human life such 
as this war demands must naturally force on 
everyone the wish for a substitute which is 
less painful to the imagination. But any 
schemes which renounce those higher gifts 
of war that serve the historic progress of 
mankind are utterly unfit and would never be 
195 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

of lasting value. It might not be difficult to 
construct plans which conserve the chance 
distribution of national possessions to-day 
still more firmly than any mere treaty and 
arbitration schemes. But, wherever the aim 
is simply to guarantee the present national 
boundaries without means to change them 
in constant adjustment to new inner needs, 
the plan is condemned by the tribunal of his- 
toric morality. 

I, for my part, see only one logical possi- 
bility. War-making could be overcome only 
if the fundamental condition of wars were 
artificially changed, and this would not be 
utterly beyond man's power. Almost all the 
wars between nations have been struggles 
to gain territory or at least to deprive other 
nations of their territory. International 
wars would disappear if nations did not own 
their countries. The idea of such a state of 
mankind would be entirely parallel to that 
of socialism for individuals in the state. The 
socialistic plan abolishes the economic strug- 
gle of the individuals by eliminating capital- 
ism. This world plan for the nations would 
abolish the struggle of war by eliminating 
territorialism. The territory on the globe 
196 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

would be distributed so that any one million 
beings would receive an equal share. Of 
course, it would not be equality of size but of 
value. The territory of Turkey even to-day 
is larger than that of France, Germany, 
England and Italy taken together. The 
equal distribution would therefore involve 
very different areas. But, fundamentally, 
any one million persons would gain equal 
chances, and, as with the growth or decay of 
the population and with the development of 
the territory new distributions would always 
be arranged, no one would have any interest 
in fighting. No nation would possess land 
any more than the socialistic individual 
would possess capital. 

This seems to me the only possible solu- 
tion of the problem which would not stifle 
the progress of mankind. As long as nations 
have possessions of land, there will be con- 
stant need of new adjustment which no hu- 
man court, but only war, can regulate. The 
anti-territorialism would bring to the nations 
all the blessings which are hoped from anti- 
capitalism for the individuals. There would 
be no poor, and no economic misery, if so- 
cialism were carried through ; there would be 
197 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

no militarism and no war, if cosmochorism 
were the scheme of the world. The word 
cosmochorism is formed from the Greek 
chora, the land. A cosmopolitan order of 
mankind would be one in which the state 
loses its individuality; in the cosmochoristic 
order the nations would retain their state 
forms, but their land would belong to the 
whole world. I do think that the transition 
to socialism is possible and would not even 
be extremely difficult in our present days. I 
think that an equal distribution of land for 
all the peoples on earth without any one peo- 
ple having a right to possession of land 
would be equally possible. Cosmochorism 
might be carried out even without externally 
changing much in the present status. But it 
would carry with it all those important and 
thousand times discussed disadvantages of 
the socialistic system. Most men are still 
convinced that the evils of capitalism are less 
than those which a socialistic order would 
involve. The stimulus which the possession 
of private and inheritable property has given 
to the world ought not to be dispensed with. 
The progress of mankind in the same way 
needs the possibility of private land posses- 
198 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

sion by the individual nations; it needs the 
rivalry and I believe that such an anti-terri- 
torialistic plan ought ultimately to be de- 
feated, for the same reasons for which the 
majority of the civilized nations still opposes 
the socialism of the anti-capitalists. But this 
is certain: As long as private possession of 
land by the nations is sanctioned, incessant 
changes in the size of the territories are 
needed and must be secured by free competi- 
tion. 

Of course, it may happen that the industri- 
ous, intelligent merchant has bad luck and 
remains poor while his less worthy rival 
grows rich by accident or trickery! no un- 
failing justice lies in the decision of the ac- 
count books. Yet on the whole our economic 
system is backed by the belief that free com- 
petition brings gain to the worthy and keeps 
down the less efficient. In this sense cer- 
tainly no unfailing justice lies in the decision 
of the weapons, but in the great average 
history has proved that those nations will 
rise which are worthy of it and those will 
fall which deserve punishment from the high- 
est point of view of civilization. Success or 
failure in war may come to nations without 
199 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

any reference to certain outlying valuable 
factors of national culture. France was 
beaten by Germany at a time when it was su- 
perior to its opponent in the art of painting. 
But on the whole the empire of the third 
Napoleon deserved to crumble. 

No reasonable man would judge a univer- 
sity by the victories or defeats of its football 
teams. There is hardly any inner connection ; 
a miserable university may have a splendid 
football squad and vice versa. The truly 
valuable energies of a college are not ex- 
pressed in such a sport appendage. But it is 
different with the war team of a nation. 
This really does embrace many of the essen- 
tial traits and virtues of the people. The 
intellectual and moral qualities of a nation 
do come to expression in a modern war. It 
is not mere strength and not mere pluck and 
least of all mere possession of guns which 
decides to-day in warfare. It is the total 
makeup of a nation with its thoroughness 
and its energy and its mentality and its readi- 
ness to bring sacrifices. 

To be sure, such a test has value only if 
one stands against one, or two against two. 
If the armies of six nations join to make war 
200 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

on two, the moral qualities of the war are 
pushed into the background. Three football 
teams against one would be no real test for 
the outnumbered party. The allied nations 
cannot prove any higher qualities and there- 
fore cannot possibly earn any honors in this 
European war, as their final victory would 
mean only a quantitative superiority, the 
power of inexhaustible combined resources. 
If one stood against one, if France and Ger- 
many were left to fight the war alone, no- 
body could even now, only five weeks after 
the declaration, have any doubt that the en- 
ergies of the German empire proved much 
superior to those of the French republic: the 
army stands near the gates of Paris and no 
French soldier is on German soil in spite of 
Belgian and English help. If it were only a 
Franco-German War, as a generation ago, 
France would be completely defeated to-day. 
When future historians study the under- 
lying conditions and factors of this European 
war, they will, no doubt, recognize that this 
superiority of the German army indeed does 
not result from a merely outer professional 
war technique, but comes because the German 
army is the embodiment of the national soul 
201 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

with all its intellectual and moral energies. 
It is the same soul which in peaceful hours 
works toward science and industry, toward 
literature and social reform. With scientific 
exactitude every detail of the campaigns has 
been worked out and prepared; with unfail- 
ing thoroughness the strategical ideas have 
been carried through; with iron self-dis- 
cipline the millions have been forged to- 
gether into one powerful machine; with un- 
swerving loyalty the nation has rallied to its 
leader and has stood by its ally ; with moral 
enthusiasm the whole people have known 
only the one thought : to sacrifice all for right 
and for honor. The true story is nowhere 
better told, nowhere more sincerely and with- 
out any retouching than in the personal let- 
ters which friend writes to friend. Nothing 
there is made up for public use. They are 
documents of spontaneous emotion. It is 
marvelous how they agree in their view of 
the situation and as to the temper of the 
German people. I have before me the letter 
of a young man in the Ehine valley to his 
American fiancee. The handwriting shows 
his inner excitement. I may render a trans- 
lation here, as it is so typical. 
202 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

You simply cannot imagine how sad and yet how 
inspiring everything here is. Since an hour ago I 
have known that England too has declared war on 
us. It will be a. struggle of life and death. From 
all sides they fall upon us. We might have left 
Austria alone ; then we should have had peace. And 
yet not a single man wavered even for a second 
when the question came to us whether we ought 
loyally to keep faith with Austria or not. Our 
people is going into this war with such moral 
earnestness and is so deeply impressed with the 
feeling of its right and of its duty and with such 
indignation at the frivolous, long prepared breach 
of peace and the deceitfulness of our enemies that 
you cannot imagine it at all. The people rises with 
its tasks to a tremendous height ; men become better 
and nobler; all the good instincts become wide 
awake. No faintheartedness, — no narrowminded- 
ness, — no timidity, but at the same time no boast- 
ing, no arrogance ! Everything is done with a quiet, 
earnest feeling of responsibility. 

It is inspiring to see this enthusiasm with which 
all hurry to the standards, to hear those roaring 
cheers with which they are brought to the railway 
trains which go to the front. Even the poorest give 
every bit which they have. There are no longer 
any political parties in Germany ; all are one. Then 
again you see scenes which make your heart break. 
I saw yesterday a mother who took leave of five 
sons. Women and children hang weeping upon the 
father of the family, whom the fatherland calls. 
203 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

But everyone feels : we shall win, — because we have 
not only the might but the right on our side. This 
will be the most terrible war which the world has 
ever seen. Hundreds of thousands will have to die, 
and a tremendous sorrow will go through the lands. 
But we shall win over unscrupulous force, over 
hatred and envy. 

When you receive this letter the first battles will 
have been fought. At this time the mobilization of 
our armies is going on in perfect calmness. All 
is running smoothly like a machine. We shall send 
millions into the field. The sons of the Emperor 
and of all the other German princes go to the front, 
many as simple lieutenants. I myself have not 
served in the army and should be called only if the 
last man is needed. But I shall certainly not wait 
until that time comes. To-morrow I shall put my- 
self with my motor car at the disposal of the army 
and hope sincerely that there will be use for me. 
You will not blame me for it, I am sure. I love 
life a hundred times more since I have found you, 
but here the fatherland calls me. 

Writer on writer says exactly the same. 
This morning I got from my best friend in 
Berlin a letter which begins as follows : 

War ! The years of our youth were inspired by 
the ideas of the great time which created the Ger- 
man empire. To-day a new furor Teutonicus has 
burst out. To live through this is worth a lifetime. 
204 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

Our nation has been torn from the deepest peace 
and we have seen a rising of the people such as 
the world has never seen before. Every German felt 
that the existence of Germany as a cultural world 
energy was at stake. With a solemn enthusiasm, 
without oratory and without jingoism, the whole 
nation stood by the Kaiser like one man. There 
were no longer any Catholics or any Social Demo- 
crats, not even Poles and Alsatians, but only Ger- 
mans. They felt themselves as bearers of civiliza- 
tion against the barbaric Pan-Slavism, as bearers 
of ideals against the selfish commercial spirit of 
England, as bearers of sober efficiency against the 
phrases of France. There was not a single deserter, 
and millions of volunteers. Everyone wanted to 
offer his life. This iron will to win must lead to 
victory. In Germany not a soul thinks of the possi- 
bility of a defeat. The spirit which animates the 
whole nation is simply marvelous and admirable. 
There is no reckless overconfidence, no drunkenness 
of spirit, but a sober, proud consciousness of inner 
strength and of a righteous cause. 

Indeed every letter reiterates this moral 
enthusiasm, this new inner unity of the na- 
tion, and one thing above all, the tremendous 
increase of the monarchical conviction. The 
complete failure of the American press to 
grasp the true historic meaning of this war 
and its inner consequences will later be rec- 
205 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

ognized perhaps in no point more strongly 
than in the absurd persistency with which it 
repeats the prophecy that the war will weaken 
the monarchical idea and create a popular 
desire for an imitation of republican gov- 
ernment. So far only one great historic fact 
stands out, that the German nation and the 
Emperor were never more one than since the 
hour when the war against Russia broke out, 
and that in the twenty-seven years of the 
Kaiser's reign the love for the Emperor and 
the conviction that the monarchical state 
form is the ideal form of government for the 
great German nation was never so deep and 
penetrating as to-day. 

It is as if the great leaders of the German 
nation had risen from their graves, Bismarck 
and Moltke planning again in the headquar- 
ters of state and army. It is as if Schiller 
had come to life and was inspiring with his 
ethical idealism the troops which are defend- 
ing their home land in the west, as if he called 
to them once more: "Infamous is the na- 
tion which is not ready to give everything 
for its honor.' * And it is as if at the eastern 
frontier at the town of Konigsberg a little 
old-fashioned man had left the grave, Im- 
206 



THE MORALS OF THE WAR 

maimel Kant, and whispered into the heart 
of everyone : l \ There is only one thing worth 
while in life, and that is the moral will." 
And all are ready to give their lives to pro- 
tect those boundaries against the Russian on- 
slaught. Never was the moral will of the na- 
tion more alive and more pure. 

Even the poems of the day affirm it in all 
its solemnity. Everyone has read those Eng- 
lish poems cabled over the world which the 
war has brought forth. But all which they 
had to say was boastful pride in England and 
hatred for the enemy. No tone of that kind 
was heard in Germany. One poem after an- 
other is filled with the moral meaning of the 
world event. The controlling idea is that of 
self-discipline. We have taken life too light- 
ly ; we have lived too much for the joys of the 
day, and the pomp of the outer world; now 
the hour of sacrifice and of need and of sad- 
ness has come to us. May it make us purer 
in heart and deeper in thought and more ideal 
in action. The whole meaning of life is to 
do one's duty, and suffering may help us to 
become better. I may pick out of many 
similar songs one by Richard Dehmel. I 
know he has always felt the pulse-beat of the 
207 



THE WAR AND AMERICA 

German nation. My daughter translated his 
short poem. It may be the closing word of 
this first part of my little diary: 

Hour of steel, thou art a blessing 
That at last unites us all. 
Friend and foe, still peace caressing, 
Trembled in suspicion's thrall. 

Now comes the fight, 

The honest fight! 

Greed with blunted claw has meanly 
Bartered for its pomp and lust; 
Now we all are feeling keenly 
What can save our souls from dust: 

The hour of need, 

Of blessed need! 

Truth will blaze, through darkness smiting, 
Over dust and powder's smoke. 
Not for life we men are fighting — 
Fighting till the fatal stroke: 

For then comes death, 

Divinest death! 

Led by faith, thy land defending, 
People, for thy spirit fight, 
Heroes' blood for honor spending! 
Sacrifice be onr delight — 

Then victory, 

Hail victory! 

208 



NOTE 

The first papers of this diary were written 
in the first days of the war. They were 
based, of course, on the knowledge available 
at that time. I have not changed them after- 
wards, because I wanted to preserve the inner 
truth of the immediate impressions. But at- 
tention ought to be drawn to one point which 
now appears entirely different. 

I have emphasized that the war was forced 
on Germany but acknowledged that tech- 
nically Germany declared the war. We know 
now that even this is not the case. Even 
the technical war-making was begun by Rus- 
sia and France. The Russian and French 
troops crossed the frontiers and made pris- 
oners before Germany took any warlike step. 
After Russia's actual starting of the war, 
Germany simply declared in its ultimatum 
that if these hostile movements did not stop 
at once it would consider itself in a state of 
war. They did not stop and, therefore, Ger- 
many withdrew its ambassadors. 
209 



NOTE 

Since it has become absolutely clear that 
the war was started by Kussia and France 
and that Germany was in no way responsible, 
the anti-German press has suddenly discov- 
ered that the question of the origin of the 
war is * ' very unimportant. ' ' Historians will 
judge otherwise. They will be unwilling to 
disburden the allies so easily. It is very im- 
portant to understand who started this war 
of wars and to know that Germany was loyal 
to her policy of peace till the enemies actually 
crossed her frontiers. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jij/^y 2001 

PreservationTechnologiej 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATIOI 



